When you start an online business, there are many factors you need to take into consideration including website development, social media marketing, and service development. When you are first starting, you may feel inclined to handle everything yourself to save money since your business is new and your profits may be low or non-existent. However, if you can scale the business quickly, you will need help quickly. The best approach is to consider your options before needing them, so you do not find yourself in a desperate situation.
Social media customer service handles all inquiries and contacts that are funneled through your social media channels and the information gleaned from those interactions. Depending on the size of your business and the engagement you get through social media, this could be upwards of a thousand contacts each week. Online businesses that have mastered the art of social media marketing may have all of their business run through their social media pages.
While a small business may be able to handle all the social media engagement in-house, as you grow you will need resources and processes that can allow you to streamline your activity to make the most of your time. Efficiency will become vitally important while not sacrificing high quality customer service. The more efficiently your customer service arm is running, the more time you will have to focus on product or service development and implementation.
You will also have more time to focus on marketing campaign development to keep your online presence and social media engagement high. Consistently creating viral content is time-consuming, but the rewards can be monumental. The other side of viral content is needing a reliable staff and process to handle the response to your content. This is where software solutions like Bright Pattern will make the most significant difference. Too many companies go under because they get a rash of exposure and then are unable to keep up with the customer requests.
Your customer service solution needs to keep you prepared for sudden increases in calls and contacts from customers and potential customers. Poor customer service will quickly turn away potential customers and cause them to possibly leave negative reviews of your business online. A social media customer service solution will handle that side of the business. It will ensure you are prepared for all many of updates, questions, problems, and concerns that customers may have while focusing on the benefits of the product or service. You will receive insight into what customers are saying, what they want, and what they don’t like about the product, service, shipping, or other factors.
While some may feel a software solution for customer service is unneeded because they can handle the customer service needs on their own to save money for their growing business, it is crucial to take the value of your time into consideration. When you decide to move forward with a social media customer service solution, you want to look into the success rate and benefits of the solution. You also want to look at their potential capacity to ensure the solution has the ability to grow with your business. You do not want to waste time and resources setting up a solution that is incapable of growing with your business.
It is often difficult for a new business owner to gauge how much or how quickly they will be able to grow their business. There are so many unknowns involved that anything you come up with will be an educated guess at best. One approach is to consider what you want your business to be, and plan for that size. Choose a solution that can work for where you are currently, but can grow to the size you plan to work towards.
