Social media are no longer just meant to be in touch with friends and discover new connections. Today, it is possible to search for jobs, shop online and read news on these platforms.

Thus, it makes sense for companies to take advantage of the fact that consumers spend several hours per day on these platforms. The new generation of consumers follows their favorite brands on social networks and interacts with them, so it is essential for companies to be present in these media.

A relatively recent way to use social networking for business is to make your pages the privileged customer support platforms. As more and more companies recognize the value of marketing on social media, the practice of bringing customer support closer to where customers spend time actually begins to grow.

In this article we compile the best customer support practices in social media so that your company makes the most of its presence on these platforms and what benefits it can bring to your relationship with customers.

Reply to messages as soon as possible

Ideally, you should respond to your customers within minutes. This does not mean that you should respond in a hasty way, but rather maintain the communication quality standard while becoming more responsive. If you do not have anyone to monitor the profile and messages received 24 hours a day, be sure to indicate your business hours in the profile information and set up automatic responses so that the client knows when they will be answered.

Communicate consistently

Since it is normal to receive the same questions several times, having a standard answer file is a great way to decrease response time. This will also ensure that you always respond with the same quality standard to all customers. However, you should always personalize the messages sent with the client's name and do not "cling" too much to previously given answers, if they have not been enlightening.

Personal is not informal

Customizing the answers should not be confused with being informal. You may be eager to solve the problem and help the client, but you should always remember to use professional and cordial language. If you post rude comments on your company page, always be polite.

Simplify the experience

If a customer communicated with your company via facebook chat, please respond to him by the same means. If someone left a question in the comments, reply directly to the opening comment and, if necessary, forward it to private messages. The goal is for the customer to have an experience as pleasant and simple as possible and feel that your brand is concerned to give you support.

Humanize the page

Although the social media manager responds on behalf of the company, you should seek to humanize the communication and give a name to the "voice". So, when answering a question from a client, the employee should sign with his name or introduce himself at the beginning of the conversation. Customers value details like this.