All of the social best practices that we have discussed so far are equally applicable to your customer support and your marketing departments. However, customer service faces their own unique challenges which can, in turn, either create opportunities for your small business or if not handled correctly, create even bigger headaches. Consider the following (sourced via HubShout—"Social Media's Impact on Customer Service"—http://bit.ly/1hDB6lW ):
The social networks are rapidly becoming the vehicle of choice to request customer support.
Over 70 percent of customers who have a support issue and express that on social media are expecting a response of some sort from the company within 1 hour. Yes, I said 1 hour.
Over 50 percent of the same customers expect the same level of service on both nights and weekends.
These numbers are huge, and you have an opportunity to be seen as either a hero or as a bum. It will all depend on your response time and your response quality...