{"id":1573997,"date":"2014-01-10T10:45:58","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T18:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/2014\/01\/10\/social-networks-are-great-platforms-for-customer-service\/"},"modified":"2014-01-30T02:43:37","modified_gmt":"2014-01-30T10:43:37","slug":"social-networks-are-great-platforms-for-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/2014\/01\/10\/social-networks-are-great-platforms-for-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Social networks are great platforms for customer service"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the retail industry<\/a>, customer service goes beyond friendliness and efficiency at the check out. Many companies use social media as part of retail marketing, but few are making use of the technology as a customer service tool. And they're missing out.<\/p>\n

At a recent discussion held by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, panelists argued that communication with customers via social networks will soon be essential<\/a>, including rapid responses to customer complaints and questions. For example, a British Airways flier spent money on Twitter to send his complaint about lost luggage to thousands of people<\/a>, Smarter Travel reported. The airline was slow to respond, and received a dose of bad publicity as a result. Conversely, USA Today announced that many weather-grounded fliers who were unable to connect with customer service on busy phone lines received a rapid response online<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And that's what customers really want – responsiveness. According to a Maritz Research report, 83 percent of customers appreciate follow up<\/a> from companies on Twitter, even if they don't specifically ask the company for help. Social media can be tricky, but a few tips can help: businesses should avoid canned responses, keep a light tone, and monitor closely for rapid responses, the UPenn panel advised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the retail industry, customer service goes beyond friendliness and efficiency at the check out. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1673113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1573997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retail-customer-business-intelligence"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1573997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1673113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1573997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1573997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.retailpro.com\/News\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1573997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}