Am I correct in thinking social media customer service is highly used and appreciated by online shoppers? (stores, reviews)

[MrJones17]

I own a few online stores. I am gearing up to invest heavily in them in 2018. The one area I feel like my competitors are beating me in is customer service. I am up against some very big brand names who have way more resources than I do as far as customer service is concerned. I'm a one man operation and tend to not really like to answer phone calls.

A few months ago though, while doing some online shopping myself, I found a store that offers customer support via their Facebook page. I also noticed Facebook has a feature for business pages that shows publicly the usual time the business takes to respond back to inquiries. I thought this is brilliant! There's even entire companies (found this one that seems to specialize in my niche) that will man the social media customer service operations for you.

I've always been really bad at talking on the phone. Even talking in public I'm very awkward in a lot of cases.

My stores don't have a phone number listed on them right now and I truly think that's hurting my credibility. My question to you guys is: would you trust a store that ran all of their customer service through Facebook? I hate those ticket systems that everyone uses nowadays. Clogs up my email and it's even worse if you have to create a username and password just to ask a simple question.

So imagine an online store that isn't a huge brand, has no phone number listed, not even an address. If the Facebook service was lightening speed and the reviews were decent, would you take a chance and make a purchase?

[Mattie]

It's better than nothing I guess. I know more people who don't use FB than users these days. Why limit your customer base?

I never click on FB ads. If I see something that interests me, I always go to the company's web site. That's where I look for customer service info, including an address and phone number. If neither is available, I pass.

[greatblueheron]

I would not use it...online cs is the only way for me, or the ole telephone.

but the best customer service ever is online Zappos. They respond promptly and bend over backwards to welcome/thank you. Even give up to a yr. for returns. Send everything In 2 days. Yes it's bigger than your operation but you could ck them out for pointers.



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Originally Posted by MrJones17

I own a few online stores. I am gearing up to invest heavily in them in 2018. The one area I feel like my competitors are beating me in is customer service. I am up against some very big brand names who have way more resources than I do as far as customer service is concerned. I'm a one man operation and tend to not really like to answer phone calls.

A few months ago though, while doing some online shopping myself, I found a store that offers customer support via their Facebook page. I also noticed Facebook has a feature for business pages that shows publicly the usual time the business takes to respond back to inquiries. I thought this is brilliant! There's even entire companies (found this one that seems to specialize in my niche) that will man the social media customer service operations for you.

I've always been really bad at talking on the phone. Even talking in public I'm very awkward in a lot of cases.

My stores don't have a phone number listed on them right now and I truly think that's hurting my credibility. My question to you guys is: would you trust a store that ran all of their customer service through Facebook? I hate those ticket systems that everyone uses nowadays. Clogs up my email and it's even worse if you have to create a username and password just to ask a simple question.

So imagine an online store that isn't a huge brand, has no phone number listed, not even an address. If the Facebook service was lightening speed and the reviews were decent, would you take a chance and make a purchase?

[MrJones17]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Keep it coming.