Social networks are an excellent tool for connecting with customers. In a world dominated by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, some of the biggest challenges businesses face include:
Provide personalized services to clients and potential clients.
Scale customer service without diminishing personalization.
Improve the quality of service and provide more accurate information to customers.
Focusing on any one of these elements can often compromise other factors. For example, providing customers with quality support and personalized services can often mean not being able to do so with large numbers of customers.
Your best bet for improving your customer service while maintaining customization and scalability is to use AI and automation.
Many brands already use AI tools in the form of chatbots on their websites and social media. Next, we’ll look at how chatbots can make customer service more effective, especially on social media.
Why use social media as a customer service tool?
Social networks began as platforms for relationship-based interactions. However, it soon became apparent that they are an excellent platform for finding clients. And not only that, people use the media to ask questions and get customer support.
There are some essential reasons for this:
Interactions on social networks, especially on Facebook pages and public groups, are open to all users. This makes companies more responsible.
Social networks are designed to be easy to use and allow people to communicate quickly and effectively with businesses.
Therefore, companies are interested in leveraging social networks to provide customer service.
And they have to do it seamlessly and with consistently high quality. 80% of people say they will stop doing business with a company after a poor customer service experience.
Chatbots can step in and make customer support effective while appearing to provide personalized and almost “human” services.
How AI is transforming customer service
People often approach customer support with questions that are simple and easy to get from a database. For example, questions about store hours, whether a store delivers to a specific location, or whether your business is open on a particular holiday are relatively easy to answer.
When your customer service staff are busy with these tasks, their time is not used effectively. Customers with more complex problems and urgent needs may be left at the back of the queue.
You can use chatbots to solve problems where customers are more likely to use a “script.” These scripts are queries that revolve around specific domains. Things like asking about your product availability, features, shipping time, etc., are very domain-specific. With research and testing, you can predict specific scripts and create the appropriate responses.
A chatbot can answer these questions when customers make inquiries on social media.
Practical ways to automate customer service
There are several helpful tools available that you can use to automate customer support. Here are some options to explore:
Use a conversational AI tool: If you want a tool that works across multiple platforms, you should consider adopting a robust and integrative informal AI tool. This tool is appropriate when your product needs timely information and regular customer support.
Leverage messaging chatbot platforms: Today, Messaging is a vital part of social media platforms. Facebook and Instagram allow people to have private conversations with businesses and each other. Using social media and messaging-based chatbot tools will allow you to create autoresponders on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. This option is ideal for small businesses working in limited local markets.
Add live chat: You can also combine automated chat scripts with live chat support. You can configure a chat tool on your website or social networks so that people are received with scripts and templates. If users find these options unhelpful, they can quickly move to live customer support. Live chat tools make it possible for your customer support staff to offer help through messages. Your team members can help customers even from their mobile phones by choosing the right tool.
Use built-in features: Facebook has its solutions to help you create templates for frequently asked questions. Their messaging platform can even be applied to your website and integrates with live agent options.
