Mentions, Comments and Replies

Build a system to get questions answered quickly.

Now that you’ve set up a system finding questions, comments, and complaints from your customers on social media, you need to figure out how you’re going to respond when they come in.

Whether you use one dedicated team member to reply to customer service social messages or segment responsibilities according to different social networks, find a system that works for your team — and that gets messages replied to or investigated as quickly as possible.

Figure out what you’ll say when you do respond.

In many cases, customers might reach out on social media to complain or ask a question. But sometimes, people just want to “troll” your company or drag you into a conversation already happening on the social platform (this is common on Twitter). 

Make sure your team is on the same page about how to respond to negative social media posts and messages — and about not feeding the troll. If the customer’s message is something that you can help with, keep reading. 

But if you suspect someone is trying to troll you on social media with overly inflammatory remarks about pop culture, politics, or things otherwise unrelated to your product, service, or brand, we recommend you steer clear.

1. Stay positive.

Keep things light and positive when you respond to customers on social media. Unless it’s obvious that they’re joking around with you, avoid sarcasm or humor — at least until the problem is solved. But don’t be afraid to show your personality when you engage with customers on social media, either. Once the problem is solved, use emojis or GIFs to show your personality and make your customers smile along the way.

2. Be transparent.

Some customer complaints on social media will be easy fixes, and some won’t be. You don’t have to solve every single question a customer has with your initial response, but you do need to be transparent with them about the timeline it will take until they get a fix. Whether you need to file a ticket with your product team or you truly don’t know how long it will take to resolve an outage, be honest about it — your customers will appreciate honesty more than having to ask you, for the millionth time, when you’ll solve their issue.

3. Know when to “take it offline.” 

Some customer interactions can be solved with a quick back-and-forth, but sometimes, you’ll want to take the conversation offline to more effectively solve a customer problem. Invite customers to send you a direct message or email if they need to share their personal information for you to help them, or if the conversation is getting tense. That will minimize external visibility on the conversation and potentially solve the problem faster than waiting for a customer to tweet back at you.