Social Customer Care

I am certainly glad I keep moderation on in the Facebook groups I moderate. Most of the time the posts are fine but there is often that one zinger that is just terrible. Got one this morning  that would have just devastated some of our parent volunteers!

If you manage a social account for a retail brand with a brick and mortar store (or maybe for a restaurant, bar, or taproom), this is a trick I started using this year!Sometimes people will contact us via DM outside of office hours with a question that could use a faster reply that we’re able to respond with (I’m a social team of one and manage 4 different accounts). I started adding not only these are the hours we’ll reply ASAP during, but also you can call the store if you can’t wait for a reply & the stores’ phone numbers.And during holidays, I change the away messages to reflect that we are closed & will reply ASAP when we reopen the next business day.I’m not sure if anyone actually ends up calling the stores when they get the message, but it at least gives them an immediate reply & an avenue to get a faster answer!What automatic reply tricks have you learned?

Having a consistent brand voice that carries across all aspects of your social media is so important-including how you respond to comments and messages.I work on many different brands (primarily in the home service sector) and would love to develop a more individual voice for each brand. Right now, we are pretty much the same safe, professional voice across each brand, with some slight variances to allow for differences in the target market.So I’m curious how you all go about developing a voice, and for those of you who are allowed to have a little more fun with that voice (i.e., injecting some humor, snark, or sass), how were you able to get upper management on board with this?  

We had a customer service experience earlier this week that made a parent of a prospective parent feel great. The parent posted on LinkedIn about how they loved our admissions tour and the care we put into the experience for their high school sophomore. We saw the post quickly and were able to comment, thanking them for their visit and hoping we move up from #2 on the student’s list to #1. The creator has 50,000 followers on LinkedIn, which didn’t affect our response but was great to see. The post now has over 500 likes, our comment has 40 likes, and we had the comment chain below happen. Proof that speedy replies can really enhance our relationships with our audience! 

The asset library is great for standardizing language and saving you a few steps on customer response! We include things such as language for the billing department or how to find a provider near them.

I work in the healthcare space, so fortunately, we don’t face too many frustrations when it comes to interactions with our brand or products. My focus is mostly on finding meaningful ways to engage appropriately.One tip that always works for me is to personalize every response as much as possible. For example, instead of a generic “We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” try something like, “Hi [Name], thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. I can imagine how frustrating that must be, and I’m here to help!”I’m curious—does anyone here also work in healthcare? How are you creating meaningful engagements on social? I find it challenging due to HIPAA privacy laws, and often, I can’t interact with the positive feedback we receive because of this.

How is everyone dealing with the constant job scams and recruitment fraud? It used to only be on LinkedIn and we could get the scammer’s profile taken down but they are now just using text or apps like Signal or WhatsApp and basically un-reportable. We’ve reported each incident to the FTC and any apps where they took place, we’ve worked to have domains and emails shut down. We’ve got a pinned post on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram and we respond to all reports (public and private) with info on recruitment scams, how to report them and where to lean more. We’ve also added a banner that pops up when you visit our career site.  Want to make sure we’re doing all we can to protect our communities, our reputation and our Talent Acquisition team who are constant targets of impersonation, especially as we continue to post legitimate jobs on social etc. 

I work in MedTech, and customer interaction seems to be a completely different situation than in other fields. I just try to be as well-researched as possible before I post something; my audience consists of doctors, so I am constantly nervous about saying the wrong thing 😂

Just this week, all our scheduled posts since Friday failed even though all our social media accounts are connected to Sprout. I tried to reach out to Sprout Support Center but I still haven’t received any reply until now. This is really affecting our social media performance. Anyone care to help?

Hi, hoping someone can help me out! My advertising access has been “permanently restricted” on Facebook and I manage multiple pages for my company. I think the issue is that I hadn’t had a personal Facebook in years, but created one when I started this new job. Thinking it’s because I don’t have much history on Facebook on my personal account and jumped right into acting as admin for a few accounts.  Long story short, I know it’s nearly impossible to get in touch with someone at Meta - SOS! Any tips or tricks? 

Hi everyone! We’re creating a video for social that answers a FAQ for our customers. We’re considering adding our customer service email at the end of the video for users to have another place to reach out but are concerned it will lead to potential email overload.  Have you tried this, and did the pros outweigh the cons?

Hi everyone! My health care organization is slowly starting the process of launching a TikTok account.My questions are;How should we be responding to comments/questions?Do we respond to only the not so nice comments? Do we let negative comments whittle away and pay them no attention? Appreciate any insight you may have from a large brand’s perspective! Thanks!

Hey,  My personal Facebook was hacked and it’s tied to all the accounts I manage for my company and the ad accounts. I have two factor authenication. I have spoken to Meta twice, they said they got rid of the bad actor, but it appears that bad actor is still there trying run ads through our business manager account. Has this happened to anyone before? Any advice?  Thanks, Dan

Hello!  I am working to build out a community management document with FAQs for a client. Keen to hear from other community managers/ SMMs if you have found a template or a ‘best practice’ for this type of thing. Conscious it will contain many strands, i.e product queries, warranty questions, lifestyle questions etc, I am keen to keep it practical and organized.  Any tips, ideas, or templates welcome! 

Hello all, I’ve been struggling with this issue ever since taking over the management of the social channels at my current workplace. Since we are an association with so many different chapters, divisions, student chapters, committees, etc… and they often are made up of an international member-base, we get a lot of people listing as working for us on LinkedIn when they don’t.Shoutout to all the other association people on here! Can you share what you’ve done to help guide your members in the removal of their employment record on LinkedIn? I’ve commented on a few suggesting they change the record to the specific chapter they are associated with, but a lot of those groups don’t have a LinkedIn page.Thanks in advance!

One of the admins for my Facebook page is no longer able to log in to her profile, so she cannot access our page. She accidentally deleted FB from her authentication app, so she’s unable to provide the code for two-step authentication.Has anyone had success getting around authentication codes or verifying identity another way? She is still able to log in to IG and post to FB from there. Any help appreciated. Thanks! 

👋 Hi! I’m Craig, Community Manager with Goosechase. 🪺 We recently launched our very own online community, The Nest, to connect Goosechase creators, share resources, and host events. We currently use the Smart Inbox to find current customers using the app that may benefit from joining the community and sharing a link.🗣️ Does anyone have experience driving new community signups and engagement with social? What tactics have worked for you? What’s the best way to generate a new post in your community?

Gearing up for Q4 and thinking about the training we will put forth to our team. Feel free to answer ANY that apply to you:  What are some aspects you enjoy or look for when shopping with companies online through Social platforms? How do you prefer to interact with companies during the holiday season? Are there any specific elements you appreciate during this festive time? In your experience, what makes you a loyal customer to certain companies far beyond Q4? Are there specific factors that keep you coming back? How important is prompt and personalized customer service to you when engaging with companies online? Do you value proactive assistance from companies, such as proactive outreach about promotions or relevant updates? What channels or methods do you find most convenient for communicating with companies during your shopping experience? During the holiday s

Hi there, Does anyone know if comments from Youtube ads stream into Sprout’s inbox?