Responding to Customers Effectively Online

- [Narrator] Online customers should be provided with the same exceptional customer care as in-person customers.

Responding to customer communications is a large aspect of online customer care.

Understanding online communication tools, customer needs, their purposes for reaching out to you, and developing a response plan will help ensure that your communications with customers are timely, effective, and valuable.

It's important to know how your customers prefer to communicate.

There are numerous online or digital communication tools, texts, social media, messenger apps, review sites, email, live chat.

However, communication tool use and preference will vary with demographic characteristics, such as age, education, income, or other factors.

For instance, a majority 52% of millennials prefer communicating with businesses via social media while only 14% of baby boomers, and 29% of gen X-ers share the same preference.

Knowing your customers and being in touch with their preferences will allow you to integrate the tools they prefer into your operations.

How you respond to complaints or negative feedback is critical.

The more well-prepared you are, the better your responses will be.

Try to anticipate different types of complaints and have a plan for how you'll respond to different situations.

Following a response plan can help you feel confident with your interactions even praise as well as provide consistency and help maintain timeliness.

A response plan begins with listening or as these are online communications, making sure that you are receptive to the customer's message.

You should then acknowledge the communication and ask any needed clarifying questions before providing your response.

Also ensure that you follow up with the customer as appropriate.

Consider the following questions as you develop a response plan.

Who will respond?

What is the chain of command?

How quickly will you respond?

What will you respond to?

When do you take an issue offline?

What documentation is necessary?

Central aspects of employing a response plan include understanding why consumers connect, understanding what their needs are, and providing timely responses.

Individuals directly engage businesses for customer care for three purposes.

They may have a compliment they want to share, a question, or a complaint.

The first type of interaction, a compliment is what we hope all customer interactions will be.

Unfortunately, that's unlikely.

Special attention needs to be placed on handling the second and third types of interactions online, questions and complaints.

How you handle these types of interactions can be defining moments for your business.

Having a well thought through response plan in place can ease some of the anxiety that you may experience when questions or complaints appear in your inbox or on your social media profile.

Finally, how quickly do you need to respond?

Immediately?

When you find the time?

Consumers' experiences with communicating with other businesses develop their expectations for future online communications.

For consumers who email a business, half, 50% expect a response within 24 hours.

A quicker response is required on social media where 80% expect a response within 24 hours, and 42% expect a response within one hour.

Social media response expectations also vary by platform.

85% of Facebook users, for example, expect their response within six hours, while 64% of Twitter users expect their response within one hour.

Live chat as implied by the name carries the quickest response time expectation of under one minute.

Not only is it important to understand the implied response times for each tool, but is also important to know your audience.

For instance, are your customers familiar with the demands of your business?

If not, are your response timeframes clearly visible online, or should you consider adjusting someone's work responsibilities to ensure timely communications?

Personal, timely, and attentive responsiveness to customer communications is a key component to customer care.

This starts with understanding the online communication tools that customers use and prefer, and their expectations for responsiveness.

Think about why customers would want to connect with you and how to address their needs with special attention paid to handling complaints and negative feedback.

Understanding these elements will allow you to develop a purposeful and effective response plan that will position you to ensure that the online customer communication experience you provide lives up to your in-person standards and expectations.