The Importance of Getting Social Media Customer Service Right
It’s the year 2000 and you just picked up the game of the season – only to be annoyed by a bug that’s halted your gameplay. What do you do? You pick up the phone, call the customer support and remain on hold for hours. Worse, you write an E-mail to support and wait for days in the end for a reply. Cut to 2018, where you find the slightest fault or defect, you just pick up your phone and tweet to the Game Publisher’s handle to get a quick resolution! Things surely have changed for the better! Today, as per Hubspot, 72% of the consumers expect their queries to be resolved via Twitter within an hour. Social Media, therefore, has to become an integral channel of communication and a key component of your customer support strategy. Not only is social media customer service fast, but it is also effective and personalized – helping you maintain an overall positive outlook and a better CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) score!
As the digital entertainment industry grows massively, there’s a need to maintain excellent customer service to retain their existing fan base and at times, even use it as a competitive advantage to gain new customers. As per research, retained and loyal customers can help increase your incremental growth by up to 20% a year!
Let us take a look at the customer expectations from social media customer service that can help gaming studios and developers maintain a positive reputation online:
Responsiveness: The number of queries/ complaints resolved and the time taken to respond to these queries matters and determines how many customers will actually write to you.
Utility: A query can be resolved faster if the right kind of tools are employed. This increases efficiency by sourcing the queries to the right person in the team thereby the answers can be delivered through social media effectively.
Relationship: The tone of your company defines everything because people are always watching on social media. Be genuine, communicate effectively, and be polite. Please and thank you can go a long way!
Now, that the expectations are set, the record must be set straight that if there’s one thing that’s worse than no social media customer service, it is bad customer support! The right kind of approach to social media can do wonders for your company. Let us take a look at some of these approaches:
Responses: Time is money. About 40% of the customers expect their complaints to be resolved with an hour, whereas 30% expect their queries to be resolved within 30 minutes. If you take more time than that, you are already a step down in your social media customer service endeavors.
Empathy: The ability to look from the customer’s perspective is one of the best qualities a brand can adapt. Responding to a customer in a kind and thoughtful way on social media adds that personal touch and feel that makes the customer feel connected to you.
Feedbacks: When the query is heard and resolved, asking the customer to share their experience and customer service can help in turning a critic into an advocate. If they are supremely satisfied, they might even end up deleting the posted message and even replace it with a positive one.
Escalations: Escalations are a part and parcel of every product but if neglected can quickly spiral out, especially on social media. It is very important to get the customer off social media and get them to speak with you directly to prevent more damage. Direct contact can even speed up the process which is very important to both the parties involved.
A good social media customer service strategy is essential for improving the life cycle of the game and the value of the brand because of the increasing competition in the digital entertainment industry. A good player support strategy can be a game changer – improving gamer experience and ultimately resulting in player retention and increased in-game spending!
GlobalStep provides end-to-end customer support helpdesk, community / social media management, forum/chat room moderation and integrated QA and customer service. Get in touch with us to know more.
[ Shailesh Dev, is a customer service manager at GlobalStep and ensures maintain the highest grades of responsiveness and customer satisfaction while building a strong rapport and relationship with the customers.]