How to provide great customer service for Facebook

Recently, many companies have had to rethink how their social customer-care strategy impacts customer experience. It’s not enough anymore to just have a Facebook account for casual customer interactions. That’s especially true when your page and Messenger are suddenly a hotbed for active users to voice an issue or problem. Social media customer service representatives are no more important than ever.

Companies can’t skirt around social media customer support by listing a phone number on their pages. Facebook users aren’t used to having to call a phone number to make themselves heard. It’s often easier to voice complaints on social media on a page’s timeline or through Facebook Messenger. Users expect the same speedy response time from companies that they get from social interactions with friends and family.

Fifty-two percent of those surveyed by The Manifest said that Facebook, of all social networks, had the greatest impact on their purchasing behaviour. A company’s Facebook business page plays a big part in this.

With Facebook’s huge growth, there’s now plenty of research to help agents deal with service issues and provide great customer service over social channels – both in private messages and on your public page. We’ve put together a tip sheet that clues you in to Facebook customer support. There are suggestions for:

• Helping customer service reps identify support questions posted on your Facebook page
• Utilizing customer support and functionality features such as Page Insights, Chatbots, and Facebook Messenger to improve response time
• Adding a social media support app or customer feedback tab to your Facebook account to optimize accessibility

Of course, you’ll still want to provide a customer service number on your Facebook business page to go beyond the tech presence. Sometimes Messenger doesn’t cut it, and a phone call with a real person can’t be beat. Go ahead and list contact information on your Facebook account.

But remember the bottom line: there’s more to Facebook customer service than basic contact info.