Running a successful online brand – especially one that revolves around the supplying of products and services – hinges upon great customer service. Brands of all sizes have many options to consider when providing customers and clients with access to assistance; from toll free telephone numbers to email addresses and live chat.

Increasingly, many brands with a manageable level of customers have begun providing ample customer service options to their followers on social media. This easy-to-use, widely adopted and free method of providing customers with what they need is growing in popularity with each passing year.

Today, let’s discuss some ways that you can build a better customer service presence via social media.

Focus on a Specific Channel

By and large, the best way to provide excellent customer service via social media is to focus on one particular channel or platform. Whether that be Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or another platform is entirely up to you – but it should correspond to where the greatest number of your natural customers operate.

By pinging servers on only one platform, you’ll be better suited to deal with the day-to-day demands of providing this vital service. If and as your business grows, expanding to multiple social media networks can be done (but you don’t want to overdo yourself initially).

Establish Specific Criteria

In order to provide the very best customer service possible, you first need to determine how exactly you’ll respond and under what guidelines. Some common examples include dictating a maximum window of time in which to issue a response, how the brand should be represented throughout the interaction (professional, casual, etc), and what level of proactive engagement you wish to provide to those who leave constructive feedback or positive reviews.

Many successful brands who handle customer service on social media even establish templates that can be used depending on the exact inquiry. Obviously certain customizations will always be needed, but knowing exactly how to respond can help simplify the process, save you time and make the interaction more seamless for customers.

Embrace Automation Where Possible

Some customer service queries are rather generic, and don’t necessarily require highly specialized answers. This is a big reason why chatbots have become so common on social media platforms for brand pages. Even the smallest of brands can relatively easily configure a variety of automated responses based on the context of the user’s inquiry. In some cases, the automated reply will provide the current/potential customer with the information they need; in other cases, a second, custom reply may be needed.

However, it’s not just about streamlining questions and criticisms as they arrive in your inbox. Many users may be pinging servers on social media with negative opinions or otherwise easily-solved problems – but not directly addressed to you. This is why monitoring your brand name and other relevant keywords on social media is essential to providing the very best customer service (and providing you with an option to reply to every criticism).

Good customer service on social media revolves around proactive monitoring and deliberate responses to received questions. Through some automation, a solid game plan for responses and a laser focus on one specific platform, even the newest and smallest brands can satisfy their customers.