Social Media has become the new frontier of customer service. More and more frequently our pet store clients see customers reaching out on Facebook, Instagram, Google Business, Twitter, or Snapchat for questions, issues, concerns, compliments, or other ways to engage with the pet store’s brand. Part of helping your pet store’s marketing is through active engagement and monitoring of social inboxes to ensure that none of these queries slip through the cracks.

If you haven’t got all of those customer communication channels covered on a daily basis, your pet store runs the risk of losing business and disconnecting from current or potential new pet parent customers. The good news? Social media management is a huge portion of the Pet Engine Marketing service offerings - see how a discovery call could change your pet store’s fortunes this year.

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Some stats to back up the claims on social media and customer service, before we get into 4 ways to wow with customer service on social media:

1 in 3 social media users prefer social media customer care services to telephone or email
An estimated 67% of consumers now use social media networks like Twitter and Facebook to seek resolution for issues
Customers spend 20-40% more with companies engage and respond to customers via social media
Nearly 70% of consumers have said that they have used social media for issues to do with customer service on at least one occasion (Source: Social Media Today)

Not just blowing smoke here! All of our claims are data-backed and data-influenced. Give us a follow to stay in touch with what articles, resources, content, and ideas we’re providing to our free community of pet store owners on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

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How to Wow with Customer
Service on Social Media

Get your customers to love interacting with your brand online by implementing these four processes and habits.

Listen! (socially)

Every conversation socially offers your pet store something, whether it’s a chance to shine, fix an issue, provide support, answer a question, or otherwise. If there are customers that need issues that require answers from another area of your store (ownership, purchasing, etc), then make sure those departments are looped in and you are working together to make sure the customer gets the desired result.

Make sure that you’re covering all of your bases as well. Just because you don’t like or use Twitter that much doesn’t mean that your customers know that. If your store has a Twitter account that’s not used regularly but gets frequent inquiries, then you need to resolve that situation! Find somebody to manage it and answer DMs and engagement, or just delete the account.

Respond. to everything.

Customers are three times more likely to recommend your business after a satisfying social media customer service interaction! (Source: Social Media Today)

Engaging with your customers online helps them feel heard. It’s the polite thing to do, even if it’s just an agreement or an emoji. You wouldn’t ignore somebody talking to you in your pet store, would you?

In addition to this, the more engagement (from you as well as your audience) you can get on your social media posts, the more these platforms will propagate your content to like-minded people. Engagement = good.

Last and certainly not least, it’s absolutely critical that all reviews get responded to! There are opportunities in every review - check out some of our content on Customer Service and SEO to learn more about how responding to reviews improves your search engine visibility.

be quick about it!

Part of partnering with Pet Engine Marketing means that we take on the responsibility of promptly responding to inquiries in your inboxes. You can’t let complaints fester or compliments go unheard for too long - 2 out of 3 people who engage with a company on social media expect a response the same day (Source: Edison Research).

Today’s customers have high expectations - and that’s okay! There are strong payoffs (monetary and beyond) for pet stores that practice strong customer service via their social media platforms. The more responsive you are, the more loyal these pet parents will be.

maintain your ideal voice.

Social media platforms are public channels. Everybody is observing and listening. Make sure you’re following The Four P’s in every social interaction:

Polite
Professional
Pleasant
Personal

Make sure you’re using the customer’s name, and be grateful that they are taking the time to reach out to you. Address the details in the customer’s inquiry directly, apologize if necessary, and continue to ask questions to keep the conversation going. Keeping it short and sweet publicly is the best practice before engaging the customer in private communications.

How to Wow with Customer
Service on Social Media
Conclusion

Taking the time to make your social media customer service exceptional will impress your customers and keep them coming back to your pet store. It will keep them interacting with your brand on social platforms, giving you more business and visibility.

If you enjoyed this piece on how to wow with customer service on social media, we’re certain you’d like our other content! Check out our Blog and archives for more on how to use social media to your pet store’s advantage. We’re all about helping in any way we can.