Despite the new platforms on the scene, Facebook is still one of the most popular social media around. In fact, it’s been creeping steadily towards a mind-boggling three billion active users in recent years. So, it’s safe to assume there are quite a few of your customers among its users — often trying to make buying decisions with the platform’s help.
And that’s why it’s important to include the Facebook customer experience as part of your overall strategy. The more deliberate you are about engaging people on the platform, the more likely it is they’ll become loyal customers.
To help you, we compiled a few ways to make experiences on Facebook more streamlined and enjoyable.
Why is Facebook good for customer service?
Facebook is convenient and familiar. Users know the platform, its conventions and UX, and they may even have seen your ads there. It stands to reason that they would seek customer service on Facebook, too.
For example, a Facebook study showed that 45 percent of shoppers who use Facebook use it for apparel shopping activities, while 41 percent use it for “Health, Household and Personal Care” shopping.
No matter your industry, social media often features in the customer journey, as consumers use it to find information, ask questions, or express opinions about your products or services.
How can I improve my customer experience on Facebook?
Here are a few ways to help customers get the most out of their Facebook customer experience with you:
1. Optimize Messenger
If you’re using Facebook, then you should be using Messenger, too. With more than 1.3 billion users, Messenger is the medium where businesses and customers exchange more than 20 billion monthly messages. This means you need to make sure that the way you communicate with your customers over this app is as efficient and pleasant as possible.
Here are a few things to consider:
- Create response guidelines. Your team may respond to dozens of messages every day, and they need to give the right answers while keeping a consistent brand voice in every one of them. This is why fleshing out guidelines can help everyone on the team — new or seasoned — know how to respond, and do it faster.
- Implement a chatbot. Chatbots can take care of routine requests and are online 24/7 to make sure no message falls through the cracks. You can also use a chatbot to greet customers and route them to your team.
- Make sure you’re appropriately staffed. If your response waiting times are consistently high, there might be one answer to that: you need more people. Think about whether your headcount strategy needs adjusting.
- Make use of the tools provided. Messenger has built-in functionality that can help you service customers faster and better. For example, you have the option to add buttons with “quick replies” to speed up Messenger conversations. You can also add greetings from the messaging settings to welcome people automatically.
2. Integrate other online channels
Customers generally expect you to know who they are as well as their interaction history when they talk to you. Social media is no exception — especially because customers are often typing on a mobile device and have little patience for providing much information themselves.
Integrating channels correctly (in other words, implementing omnichannel strategies) helps improve customer experience. It shouldn’t matter which channel your customers choose to contact you each time — you still need to have the full interaction profile at hand to better handle requests.
This can be done easily with an omnichannel CX platform — which enables you to keep customer communications in one place. You can also identify returning users by asking them to verify their information via quick pre-chat forms.
3. Post helpful content
Facebook is a great place to post ads and promotional content (the ROI of Facebook ads is usually high, after all). But, you shouldn’t stop there. Based on your knowledge of your audience, you can create a social media strategy that includes product-led content.
This type of content is meant to assist customers in making buying decisions. It doesn’t necessarily need to explicitly reference your products or services every time, but it should help customers get more information or be inspired.
A good example is how sports apparel brands provide advice and tools for health and fitness. Under Armour, for instance, posts about their performance academy content that helps with training. This content serves to inspire customers, helping them move along the stages of their buyer’s journey.
4. Seek and address user feedback
Social media is a rich source of information about what people think of your brand. Sometimes, they tag you, other times they don’t. But, all feedback, positive or negative, is useful to your company.
Responding to positive feedback helps you engage satisfied customers on a deeper level. You could even launch a campaign to encourage them to leave reviews on other sites (e.g. TripAdvisor, Yelp). That way, you can build your strategy around making happy customers ambassadors of your brand.
The good part of this is that when you respond to positive comments, you have an opportunity to be more conversational and enthusiastic — and therefore more engaging, too. Take the example below from Delta Airlines where they responded to a customer’s comment by showing a human side. It's in small ways like this that you can create a personable Facebook customer experience.
Of course, responding to negative feedback is even more important. Your team needs to reply right away to any complaints on your page or posts. So, make sure they know it’s a priority. They should also monitor company mentions in people’s profiles. It’s good practice to reply to posts, resolving issues and defusing frustrations. Again, a set of guidelines on tone and voice can be really helpful here.
5. Ensure your page is complete
This may sound simple, but you’d be surprised how many companies neglect to complete their Facebook page. Larger businesses especially, which may have multiple locations — often in various languages to cater to a global audience — need to help their customers find what they’re looking for without hassle.
So, take a look at your Facebook page and ask yourself:
- Can people buy things from the page? Is there a link to our website or a button to our eshop (e.g. Shopify)?
- Is the “About” section helpful? Does it have relevant links and information?
- Do we have/need a “Locations” tab?
- Are there other tabs we can use? E.g. other social platforms, Community, or Events.
Consider what Facebook users would want from your Facebook page. And throughout this process, don’t forget to make use of customer feedback. Having a dashboard or periodic reporting on user requests can help you improve so much more than just Facebook — it gives you the insight to make changes that benefit the business as a whole.
How does your CX strategy stack up?
Take the assessment to find out.
Build your brand through the Facebook customer experience
Customer experience and brand go hand-in-hand. The more active and helpful you are on social media, the more your customers will trust you — and that can, in turn, translate into long-term customer relationships.
That’s why every improvement you make on Facebook, from ad retargeting to online support, should be about the customer and their specific needs. Take feedback to heart, provide relevant information, and always be available to support your customers. That’s the only way to meet and exceed expectations and drive loyalty and growth.
Now, is your company using Facebook to improve customer experience? What other social media platforms does your company use for customers?
Let us know in the comments below.