Last year UK online shoppers spent over £4 billion during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. This year research is predicting a spend of over £7 billion.  Online retailers need to be ready for a big uplift in web traffic and social engagement.

Black Friday marks the start of the busiest time of the year for many retailers and is a key revenue generation opportunity. However, it can also mean additional pressure on customer service teams as shoppers bombard them with enquiries and complaints.

Digital customers expect a quick response to any questions or queries on social media.  

• Research from BT and Avaya found 70% of consumers expect a response on social channels within 15 minutes.
• Answering a social media complaint increases advocacy by 25% (Convince & Convert)
• Not answering customers on social channels can lead to a 15% increase in the churn rate for existing customers (Gartner)
• 71% of consumers who experience positive social customer care are likely to recommend the brand to others, compared with just 19% of customers who do not get a response (NM Incite).

Clearly improving customer satisfaction across all channels makes good business sense. Customers will choose the channel most convenient for them. If you can make it as easy as possible for them to get the answers they need on digital channels, they will remember this and potentially tell their social network, increasing brand advocacy.

Get prepared now and start thinking about customer service optimisation to ensure you’ve got the right resources in place and this will help things run smoothly when the pressure is on.

To help you get it right, here’s a few top tips for delivering excellent social customer service during the holiday rush:

#1 Respond quickly – Use a digital engagement platform focused on retail such as Sentiment with a unified inbox to help your agents manage sudden volume increases and keep track of responses.  Using engagement features such as automations will help you route away any unnecessary noise and make it easier for agents to identify those messages which need a response.

#2 Stay in channel – Always try to answer customers on their chosen channel. Asking them to repeat key information will only cause annoyance so make sure agents have any conversation history at their fingertips to ensure a speedy resolution.  If you do have to switch channels ensure your social customer service tool can integrate with your CRM and other channels to enable agents to complete the information loop effectively.

#3 Prioritise satisfaction across all channels – People complaining on social media want two-way engagement and a proper dialogue.  Show you are committed to resolving their issue and provide clear guidelines for agents to follow to ensure a consistent level of service. Use a customer service tool such as Sentiment to manage instant CSAT customer satisfaction surveys.

#4 Analyse social data –  Monitor key topics and trends as well as measuring the performance of your team with in-depth customer service focused reporting. This will enable you build up a clear picture of your customer behaviour and satisfaction levels on social.

#5 Share customer insights across the business – Use conversation reporting and analytics to see what customers are complaining about, what worked well and what went wrong. This will help you fine-tune and improve the customer experience over time. Where possible provide proactive information to help customers self-serve and avoid complaints in the first place.

See how we help hundreds of leading eCommerce and retail companies simplify and manage their digital customer engagement.