September 22, 2020 
Rarely will you find the same thing trending on social media for two or more consecutive days. It is the same for social media customer service trends, and you must regularly keep yourself abreast of new developments.
Nevertheless, as much as these trends are always changing, you must also strike a balance between using new customer service trends as well as making sense of your company’s social data.
Like in fashion, music, and sports industries, among many other sectors, there exist trends.
You risk being brushed aside if you are not up to date with the latest happenings wherever you find yourself.
There are several social media customer service trends that you and your company need to know and take full advantage of. However, seven trends have been carefully handpicked.
If you carefully execute these trends and integrate them into your business operations, you can look forward to significant improvements.
These seven social media customer service trends are:
24/7 Customer Service
This will forever be a trend. Nothing can beat the all-round availability of a business. Statistics confirm that 66% of customers’ reason for switching companies is due to poor service.
Another study revealed that 80% of consumers believe a quick reply to their queries have a moderate to major impact on how loyal they are to a brand.
Being available to engage your customers at every time of the day is an essential social media customer service trend that must not be taken for granted.
Imagine your customers wanting a piece of essential information, and you are not there to answer; the frustration!
Always ensure you find the means to be available every time to engage your customers. Do not leave your customers’ queries pending and unanswered for far too long.
24/7 customer service is so important that once you fail to provide it, it only takes a tweet or a social media page for the world to know.
And best believe disgruntled customers will not be nice about their evaluation.
In a time when the use of chatbots is becoming common, you and your business should not be lacking.
Intelligent and smart chatbots like the Zebrabuzz will always keep your customers engaged, even when you are asleep.
If chatbots are not your thing, although they should be if you want to keep track of the social media trends, you can as well hire a workforce that will put in shifts to answer customers at any given time.
Nothing shows commitment to bettering customer service experience that being available every time. There is no such thing as a closed shop or a closing time anymore.
Use Artificial Intelligence in Customer Care
We have talked about chatbots under 24/7 availability, but we need to say more. Bots are the future of online marketing and are a major social media customer service trend.
However, not just any regular bot, the ones with artificial intelligence.
They do a large chunk of the job for you. AI allows your bot learn on its own, reply messages like humans, sell products, schedule appointments and create reminders for your clients, deliver relevant contents to each user among many other things.
Some people say AI-Powered chatbots, for example, Zebrabuzz can almost do the job of a customer service team and this assertion is not without basis.
Connect with your Customers on Relevant Platforms
Gone are the days when you only use one or two platforms; there are many out there now.
Ensure your brand uses user data to familiarise with the platforms that the majority of your customers use.
You cannot focus on only one platform like Facebook Messenger when it is likely some of your customers are more familiar with others.
Have your businesses in the places where your users spend most of their time in. This way, they can get access to you even when doing their favourite stuff on the internet.
We all know how switching tabs or apps can make us feel. What if your customers do not have to switch? What if you are on all the platforms they use? Yes, take advantage of that.
Continued Increase in Video Content
For a long time now, video content is consistently part of the most shared contents on social media.
A popular saying goes: “What I hear, I may forget; what I see, I will never forget.” People remember video contents more than other kinds of contents.
Not only do people relate to it more, but they also engage with it. Engaging with content means such things as retweeting, liking, commenting, sharing, and many more.
Whatever social media customer service trend you want to use, ensure video content is part. Take advantage of this tool and use it to call your customers to action as well.
If you want more proof about how video content keeps booming, in terms of active users, YouTube is only bested by Facebook.
Why else do you think Instagram introduced IGTV? How about TikTok? You cannot afford to sleep on video contents any longer. This is one of the biggest social media customer service trends today.
Private Communities and Relatively Unknown Platforms are Becoming Important
As much as you should connect with your customers on relevant platforms, another social media customer service trend you must consider is private communities.
You may not have a huge following there yet, but it does not hurt to start spreading your tentacles from now.
Five years from now, when most of your users may have started using it, you will still need to start shop there, why not do it now? By that time, you would have gained a lot of grounds and must have become popular.
Some private communities like Reddit, Discord, and many others like that.
Always Act on Customer Feedback
Hey, it’s the 21st century, and customers will not tolerate poor service any more. They will not simply take it; they will ‘drag you’.
First of all, you must provide a means whereby customers can send in reviews. However, those reviews are not just there; you must listen to and act on them, ALWAYS.
Take the reviews of your customers as sacred and for those who give negative feedback, ensure you let them know that their review is being taken seriously and something would be done about it.
You would notice that companies ask questions like “Was this helpful?” and say stuff like “Rate your experience,” using a 5-star rating. Reviews are important, treat as such.
Personalised Ads
Another of the social media customer service trends to take note of is personalised ads. When you browse some platforms (especially the ones you use regularly), you find out that most of the stuff you see are the things that appeal most to you.
This is a trend that every brand should take advantage of. Deliver content and adverts that your users will relate to.
Do not use the common “One size fits all” technique by just sending out adverts. Use user data to find out what each person is interested in and serve them those.
While some customers may be patient and go through the stuff that does not concern them in an attempt to find the ones that do, most will get frustrated and leave.
There are many other social media customer service trends to look out for; however, these seven will serve you right if done well. Remember chatbots are very important and can help you keep up with almost all, if not all of the above trends.
