Social media is best known for content sharing and posting company updates. It is also a popular PR tool and a key component for building organisational credibility. Many companies however rarely use social media for customer service and that for me is a missed opportunity.

Social media is real time and as such you really cannot hide much from it. Everybody see what you do (and what you didn’t) and this makes it a potent customer service tool. In improving your customer service online, you cannot afford to be responsive everywhere yet be passive in social media.

Here are my tips how you can maximise social media for customer service.

Talk to your customers every chance you get

Customers do not only “like” and “share”. Sometimes they comment their experience with your product or service. Many social media managers leave these comments unanswered, a common practice among many growing businesses today.

Social media conversations have numerous advantages. For one, you can dig deeper into a common issue among your customers when you talk to them. The comment section can also give you pointers how to improve your business process.

Perhaps the best thing you can get from conversations over social is building real, improving, and lasting relationship with your customers. When you answer to a comment, you are humanising your brand and making it relatable to people. They get to know you more and you get a better feel of their needs and wants.

The more you respond to comments, the stronger the tie becomes between you and your customer. Customer loyalty is a guaranteed consequence.

Nurture your customer advocate base

Provide the kind of interaction that proves your commitment to hear what your customers have to say. This can lead to building a base of loyal customers that will eventually become your online advocates. Because you give them the attention they deserve, they also become champions of your business.

There are many instances I see on Facebook that customers defend a company from negative commenters. The social media manager does not even have to explain for the company, customers do that for him. And because of the “social” nature of the platform, customers, people who are not affiliated with the brand at all, are more effective in dealing with product or service dissatisfaction.

Encourage referrals through sound content selection

Companies need to post timely content that is relevant to their customers. These must also align with their character and online identity. Providing your customers usable ideas and tips via social media can encourage them to refer you to their own network of friends. Brands that are effective in connecting with their customers get more referrals than those that do not put premium on good content selection.

Maximise hashtags

Hashtags have many uses, for marketers it amplifies engagement and can help breed viral posts. For customer service, hashtags are used primarily to organize issues with products or services. This makes it easy to find, respond, and navigate through customer concerns. If the designated hashtag is a growing positive trend about your business, you can use it to curate content to enrich it and maximize it both for customer service and marketing.

Social media as a customer service tool is not only effective but is in-sync with the tides of doing business online. As social media becomes central in one’s business growth strategy, it is also high time for it to have a more central role in reaching out to customers. Using social media for improved customer service is a competitive advantage businesses should exploit today.