The days of hotlines, call centers, and business hours are pretty much over. In today's modern society, customers often want a direct connection with businesses and social media is one of the main ways to make the connection. With a social media platform, you not only have the ability to promote your business and products, but you can also offer customer service in a personal and timely manner.
The demand on social media also has the potential to become too much and bog down a lot of your work time. To help with social media management and customer service options, consider a virtual assistant for hire. Virtual assistants have multiple advantages, and they can take on many tasks to free up your work day for other business matters.
Direct Social Media Chats
The ease of use on many social media platforms often allows customers to directly message the company they seek answers from. Facebook has the Messenger app feature, and Instagram also has a private message option.
Through these chats, a virtual assistant may answer questions and provide direct feedback to the consumer. As an alternative to a customer referral to a phone number or email address, the direct line of communication helps provide quick answers and shows your level of care.
With proper plans and the use of multiple virtual assistants, your business may be able to provide help for a majority of the day, along with night hours when your business is not open.
Quick Replies and Searches
Often, a question from a potential customer may be something a virtual assistant could provide a quick answer to. The answers to these questions are not worth the time of a call or an email response. Through access to your business social media accounts, the virtual assistant may provide a quick reply directly on a feed.
For example, someone may request to know the holiday hours for your business. A quick reply gives them the information they need without the use of your extra time. A virtual assistant may go out of their way to find questions as well.
On platforms like Twitter, the assistant could search for mentions of the company's online handle or any hashtags associated with the company. Through the search, answers may be supplied in a timely manner and will help prevent any questions from falling through the cracks or not getting properly answered.
Repetitive Answers
In the world of social media, many users will often ask a question without proactively seeking an answer first. Even if the answers are available on a social media page or official website, users may find it easier to just ask directly.
In the case of too many repetitive questions, a virtual assistant helps take care of these questions with a collection of set answers. With a document of the most common questions, the assistant may copy and paste answers directly to customers along with links for any follow-up information.
Not only will the form answers help save time on your end, but it helps save time for the virtual assistant to work on other tasks.
Public Posts
Along with private messages and chats, a virtual assistant has the ability to make public posts for the company. A public post may be crafted and implemented on social media in a variety of ways.
For example, a customer may make a public post on your page with a request or question. The public reply not only serves the customer's need but provides an answer for anyone else who asks the same question.
If your company gets a lot of the same questions, then the virtual assistant may craft a public post to answer all of these questions at once. For example, if a lot of people do ask about holiday hours, then a public post across multiple social media platforms could clarify the hours and provide information without too many personal responses.
Customer Engagement
Besides answering questions, a virtual assistant may help out your social media pages with a variety of ways to engage customers. For example, if a customer posts a picture of your product or business, the assistant may like the post, provide an encouraging comment, or give a simple "thank you."
The virtual assistant may also make timely posts based around different events and holidays. The addition of fun personal posts to a social media page allows customers to visit the pages for more than just business needs.
For example, if your company sells baked goods, your social media pages could post a meme about cookies. Holiday posts could reflect your holiday and the business at the same time. Topical event posts help tap into the mainstream dialogue and allow your business to remain fresh on the minds of consumers.
When all of the tasks are completed by a virtual assistant, you save a ton of time and have the ability to focus on other business aspects to help expand and grow.
For more information on hiring and implementing a virtual assistant with your business, contact us at Uassist.ME. We have all types of options for assistants and cater to your business needs.