Social media is the ultimate tool for Customer Success Managers. Marketing professionals must keep up with customers’ increasing awareness and leveraging SaaS growth. Building brand awareness and acquiring new customers is crucial. But what businesses ignore is the churn. It is a massive mistake in branding and finance, as 32% of customers leave after one bad experience.
Before we get into the details of managing churn effectively, let’s first define customer success in social media.
How can social media be used to manage churn
Any SaaS company must use social media. According to Sprout Social Index, social media is the most popular choice for customer service among consumers. It means that consumers are more likely to use brands that connect with them on social media. It increases brand loyalty and encourages people to share positive experiences with others.
What does customer success look like in social media?
Customer success is a dynamic model for customer service. Its goal is to alleviate customer pain before it even happens. Your social media strategy should prevent negative thoughts from getting in the heads of your customers and provide resources that will help them succeed with your product. It is how you will retain your customers.
Let’s take a look at social media and how it can be used to reduce churn.
1. Identify the causes of churn
Many reasons businesses are afraid of customer churn can be cited. While you will have to determine the exact reason, these are some common ones:
The wrong crowd will attract you
People often sign up for services they don’t fully understand. They will soon realize they don’t need your services and leave you in favour of a competitor. Ask them the right questions from the beginning.
Customer support is a mess
Even the most tech-savvy customers sometimes run into minor problems. It can lead to a significant problem if they lose their money by the time you arrive. Poor customer service can cause unprecedented churn. It is why you need to improve your social media skills. Take a cue from companies like Nike. Even if you have too many customer mentions in your inbox, it is still important to address everyone.
Customers think that your product is too expensive or too low-priced
Perception is everything. Your customers will underestimate your ability to solve their problems if they think you are too expensive. Your customers will almost certainly choose someone whose prices are optimized if you have too many options.
There are many other reasons that credit cards can expire, shrinking CLV and more downgrades than upgrades. You should also keep an eye on your competitors to see if your customers may choose someone else.
2. Social media can be used to invest in the onboarding process
Social media platforms allow people to connect and foster relationships. Currently, 49% of the global population is using social media. It only makes sense that you should do the same for customers. You need to create a social media strategy for customer success that helps you get new customers and keeps them happy.
It’s easier to use your social media accounts to reinforce your email campaign if you already have one in place. You could have a customer sign up on your portal and then collect their details on other platforms. You can later send them a welcome message on these platforms and point them in the right direction.
Send them links to your webinars or FAQs/knowledgebase, guides, or a message saying that you are glad to have them aboard. It makes customers feel valued and not marketed to.
3. Live chat software is an excellent investment for instant support via social media
Businesses must retain customers as winning new clients is not an easy task. You can make your business and yourself available 24/7 by investing in top-quality live chat software. It is a great way to solve customer problems, get feedback and improve your services to avoid churn.
Research suggests that 63% of customers will return to platforms using live chat software services. 38% of customers make a purchase. Live chat software is more than just a communication channel that triggers a visible decrease in churn rates. It’s unacceptable for anyone to be on hold. Companies are expected to support customers wherever they have a presence. However, live chat software and social media can not be used in isolation.
You can now integrate Messenger and manage messages from Facebook users by using a third-party live chat agent. You can reply quickly and media-richly and integrate multiple Facebook pages onto one platform.
4. Social media customer success strategies should incorporate FAQs and knowledge bases
The market is saturated, and customers are confused. Everybody wants immediate answers, and if they aren’t already looking for help, why not? Customer support is a critical component of your customer success strategy. It’s high time to build a comprehensive knowledge base for customer service, especially if you anticipate unprecedented growth in the future.
A knowledge base is a centrally managed and organized database that contains user manuals, FAQs and product updates. It also includes troubleshooting guides and troubleshooting guides. It serves as a placeholder for a 24-hour help desk. Your customer service representative can be freed up to address the more common and frequent issues by creating one.
It would help if you remembered a few things. The knowledge base will be where customers are redirected via social media or internet search. You need to make sure it covers all bases and is comprehensive. To create business-specific content, you will need to work with all departments. As you move forward with operations, you must ensure that the knowledge base is always up-to-date.
5. Invest in social listening
Although this may be the fifth, understanding your customers’ expectations and needs should be a top priority for your company. Social listening is the best way to find out this information.
Social listening allows you to see what your customers say about you through their conversations on social media. It allows you to get their honest opinions about your products and what they want from you in the long term. Negative opinions can lead to churn. You can track social media mentions with tools such as IFTTT, HootSuite or Google Alerts.
Next, you will use the insights from social listening to create engagements that address your customers’ needs and wants. The same insights can be used to create ads that target a specific demographic.
6. To increase retention, offer incentives and rewards through social media
Businesses face a lot of customer churn, especially if their offerings are digital. You have every reason to be cautious if switching costs are high in your industry. Apart from the above, there is another way to increase retention. It is called a reward system or loyalty program.
You can offer your most lost customers incentives, such as a trial of a premium product or time-sensitive discount codes, in return for feedback or a survey. It makes customers feel that you want them to stay with you for the rest of their lives.
You can create a social media campaign that informs your customers about your reward program. They can get reward points by creating an account. These points accumulate with each purchase and can be used to receive freebies and discounts.
7. Publicly address problems and then move to private channels
Your brand will not be the subject of many customers’ opinions. These complaints will only be a small part of the larger picture. Nearly 96% of unhappy customers never complain, and the majority of them will leave without a trace, never to return.
It is where social media can help you address the few complaints that you get. It will show that your brand is listening to the public’s concerns and set the bar for the quality of the service you offer.
If the matter is sensitive, you can use a direct communication channel to approach the subject. However, it is always best to publicly state your position.
Social media can help customers succeed
Retaining customers is much cheaper than acquiring new customers, even though it may seem like more work. However, social media integration is one of the best ways to reduce churn.
Disclaimer. The opinions and views expressed in this article are the authors Judge Napolitano.
