Social-First Customer Care with Brooke B. Sellas @BrookeSellas #vcbuzz

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Social-First Customer Care with Brooke B. Sellas @BrookeSellas #vcbuzz

Social media has changed our lives without a doubt, but it has also changed the way we do business beyond recognition.

One of the biggest changes social media has brought about is the way customers can connect to businesses.

Never before was it so easy to connect to any business, and do it publicly.

How to deal with this new reality and what is social-first customer care? Let’s discuss!

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About @BrookeSellas

Brooke B. Sellas @BrookeSellas is CEO @HelloBSquared

Brooke Sellas has 15+ years of marketing experience, with over ten years focused specifically on social media marketing. She has taught social media classes as an adjunct professor at elite universities such as NYU and Baruch College.

Brooke is reimagining social-first Customer Care which is what we are talking about today! Connect to Brooke on Linkedin!

Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you become a digital marketer? Please share your career story!

I started my career in the non-profit sector. I honestly think this is why I care so much about #CX and the customer. In the NPO world, your donors are EVERYTHING. They are at the center of your universe so every move you make involves donor impact & implications.

The SPT says that we form trust based on disclosures & revealing information. There are 4 types of disclosures: Cliches, Facts, Opinions, and Feelings. Looking at SPT & social media, I wanted to see if we form relationships with brands online in a similar way.

Turns out: we do! However, most brands are communicating with their communities with Cliches and Facts – which is why they aren’t forming a bond & gaining loyalty. Conversely, the brands who communicate with Opinions & Feelings tend to have large, loyal communities.

This is why at @hellobsquared our marketing motto is “Think Conversation, Not Campaign.” ? Using social intelligence to learn about your audiences & communicating regularly with your community is the best differentiator there is. (And so few are doing it!)

Q2 What is social-first customer care and why care? Will it work for just about any business?

Social-first customer care is actively following your would-be and current customers through the customer journey (on social media) & caring for their needs – whether they tag your brand directly or not. It’s responding in real time (or as real time as possible).

A simple search on social will show your business if people are talking about you. Search your brand name, product/service names, hashtags/campaigns, and stakeholders. You’re likely to see that you’re being mentioned.

Free tools you can use to monitor brand mentions: Google Alerts, @Mention, and @Talkwalker offers a free brand search.

Obviously, it’s easy to see when would-be or current customers tag your brand on social. But there are a LOT of instances where consumers are talking about a brand & its products w/o tagging them. These convos are just as important to monitor and respond, when warranted.

Q3 How to create a social-first customer care strategy for your business?

We ✨always✨ start our customer care strategy by LISTENING.? We use social listening tools to achieve this, and we uncover social data around audience analysis, brand sentiment, share of voice, campaign analysis/differentiation, and more.

Next, you want to document the FAQs (frequently asked questions) your brand receives online. Are these already being addressed? Yes: great, keep documenting! No: Who should be?

Then, we get to tagging, which is something you can do with a social listening tool. We like to tag (or label) both incoming and outgoing convos to see what themes pop up. This helps with trending topics, share of voice, and sentiment (pos/neg/neutral feelings).

For example: perhaps your coffee machine (product) is getting tagged a lot in convo. Add to that the fact that it’s negative sentiment. Dig in – WHY is this happening, WHAT is the issue, and HOW can we do internally fix to attain positive sentiment?

Q4 Are there any examples of this strategy well-set-up? Are there businesses that get it?

There are the well-known greats, like Zappos and Nordstrom. But there are plenty of other brands – big and small – that show up regularly online to be helpful. Sephora is always quick to reply and strives to be helpful.

The brands doing it well have a few key traits: 1) they’re quick to respond – likely immediate or less than 30 minutes on social 2) they respond to ALL mentions (pos/neg/neutral) + are proactive for when they’re not mentioned, too 3) they have empathy while helping

Absolutely. Customers (and their complaints or questions) aren’t interested in your “quiet time.”

Q5 What are your favorite social media listening and management tools?

We are HUGE (like, really really BIG) fans of @SproutSocial – and that’s our tool of choice for clients who don’t currently have a social listening or management tool. But we also like and have used/use many other tools.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK. What are you trying to achieve by using a listening tool? What are your specific use cases? Then, when demo’ing tools, tell them what you are trying to solve for with your use cases and make them SHOW you how their tool will do that for you.

UX is also a biggie. We’ve used tools that can do things we need, but the interface is clunky. The tool’s own customer care is important, too! How quickly do they respond when there’s an issue? These are critical for success.

Our previous content marketing chats:

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