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Social Media Customer Service: Tips for Handling Feedback and Complaints

A woman holding a tablet and smiling as she oversees customer service on social media, handling feedback and complaints

One of the primary strengths of social media is that the platforms provide a direct channel for communicating and interacting with your audience, customers, and clients. This allows them to reach you in return. That communication will sometimes be positive, while other times customers may voice an issue or complaint. We’ll explain the importance of conducting customer service through social media and how you can handle that feedback and complaints.

The Importance of Customer Service on Social Media

Besides in-person and over the phone, most businesses offer customer service through their email and self-service portals. These are essential for any business that operates digitally. However, with the rising dominance of social media platforms, a growing portion of users have begun to seek customer service through social media channels. In a recent study, 1 in 4 users said they prefer to get customer service through social media, which was up from 1 in 5 just a year prior. The same study also found nearly a fifth had sent a customer service request in the past 3 months. This means it is essential for businesses to offer customer service through their social media.

Answering Questions

The primary customer service task boils down to answering questions. These can be about specificities of a service or product, the cost of shipping, the status of an order, etc. Such questions will often come as direct messages or comments on a specific post. In either instance, a business should answer the question promptly and accurately. If the question is too specific or requires confidential information, be sure to politely direct the communication to an alternative channel, such as email.

Gathering Feedback

Customer service isn’t just about answering questions. One of the things people love about social media is that it provides them with a voice. In fact, because social media makes this so easy, many prefer to provide their feedback on these platforms. This is no different for a business, where customers or clients might provide feedback on their products or services. You can also use social media to gather and survey feedback from your customers/clients. This feedback can take a few forms on social media. It can be comments, direct messages, polls or user-generated content about your business. Sometimes this feedback will be positive, praising your business. Other times it might be requests or suggestions. Be sure to respond and engage with this content, thanking them for the kind words or acknowledging the suggestions. This feedback can be highly informative, and your public responsiveness further helps to build your brand’s sincerity.

Handling Complaints in Social Media

Unfortunately, sometimes the feedback will be negative or even be a complaint. Occasionally these comments will just be abusive. With these follow the old internet adage, “Don’t feed the trolls.” Hide these comments, block their messages, and move on. Other times, these may be more sincere concerns or issues. Treat these earnestly and as an opportunity to demonstrate your care for your products/services and those who receive them. It should go without saying that you should not respond dismissively or, worse, with hostility.

If you begin to notice numerous comments or messages with complaints for the same issue, you should acknowledge you have a more serious concern. In these instances, direct the users to a collective communication channel such as a customer service email. You can also turn off comments on this post to prevent the issue from getting out of hand and create a post or story that directs anyone with the issue(s) to contact your more official channels. Coming up with a set number to make this call at is considered a good idea.

Taking It “Offline”

This brings us back to an important thing to remember about social media customer service. Overall, social media is a powerful and convenient communication tool, but it is highly public and subject to the control of the other platforms. It’s perfect for addressing simple and basic customer service occasions. However, if the service required is more specific or complicated, or the issue or complaint more severe, your social media team should direct that person to more official channels offered by your business. We’ve already mentioned email, but in certain instances you can also offer a phone call. If there is a serious complaint or issue, you can also consider allowing your social media team to direct the person directly to the business manager or owner through email, the phone, or even in person. This provides a direct access that they might appreciate.

Understanding that Customer Service on Social Media is Social

You should now have a better sense of how social media is useful for customer service. However, it isn’t a complete solution. Instead, it will often serve better to address simpler questions, gather feedback, or open a line of communication to another more specific and official channel. It’s still more social than it is official business. For this reason, you can consider using a chatbot to help address any simple questions or direct users to the official communication channels. Just remember that people always prefer dealing with a person for customer service. If you’re looking to incorporate your social media more into your customer service strategies or need help overseeing your social media channels, be sure to contact Rosewood’s social media marketing team.

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The Impact of Typography on Website Readability and Branding

A pile of various keys used in typography, showing how hard it can be to pick the right font for your branding.

Fonts can easily be overlooked when it comes to web and branding. No one bats an eye at a suitable font, but the wrong font can get a lot of unwanted stares. As a result, the right typography is an important decision for a business’ website and branding. We’ll explain the impacts of typography, why font choice is important, and how you can start to pick the right font for your business.

Typography and Communication

Typography is an art dedicated to communication that is nearly a millennium old. In fact, some of the major fonts used today are age-old standards. Garamond dates to the 15th century, Baskerville is about 250 years old, Times New Roman was designed in 1931, and Helvetica (which you’re reading this in) at 67 is enjoying a surge in popularity. Some other standard fonts are more recent and date to the digital age such as Arial and Georgia, but the reason all of these fonts have become standard is because of their legibility and accessibility.

Why Pick a Font

While there are certainly a set of well-established favourites in typography, there’s still the task of choosing which is suitable for your business. This is an important decision because it guides the appearance and design of its website and all other forms of communication including social media, emails, ads, etc. Picking a single font for all of these is essential for building your brand’s consistency. That visual consistency in the same typography naturally increases a sense of trust for your business.

Furthermore, certain fonts also have associations and tones. It might seem odd that some text on a page or screen can cause certain emotional reactions, but some people respond negatively when they see something written in Comic Sans or Papyrus. You not only want to pick a font that allows your website and business to effectively and accessibly communicate, but also accurately reflects the character of your brand.

Font Readability Comes First

Of course, communication is a primary factor in all typography. You will want to pick a highly legible font for your branding. There are certain aspects that will help you consider the right typography for your website and branding.

Weight

A font’s weight refers to the thickness of its outlines. For example, a bold version of a font has a greater weight than the thin version. Most fonts offer multiple weights. This is beneficial because you can use the same typeface to visually organize information. For example, the Rosewood website is using bold weight for each heading along with a larger size for visual distinction from the medium regular text. Your website design should set out these typgraphy styles and your branding should outline which weight is appropriate where. Remember that thinner weights can be much harder to read.

Serif vs Slab Serif vs Sans-Serif

Serifs are the small lines attached to a letters’ large strokes in some fonts. Times New Roman and Georgia are two fonts with serifs. Slab serifs also have these strokes, but are thicker, such as Rockwell or Courier. Helvetica is an example of a sans-serif font, i.e. one without any extra strokes. These are also sometimes called grotesque fonts (referring to the time of their origin rather than an aesthetic judgment).

The argument about whether serif or sans fonts are more legible is still a matter of debate. However, the general rule is that those with full vision can read serif fonts faster, but sans-serif fonts are more legible for those with visual difficulties. As a result, sans-serif fonts are typically considered the more direct and accessible choice, slab-serifs are recognized for their modernity, while serif fonts have an air of sophistication or elegance.

Script and Decorative Fonts

Script fonts are those that imitate handwriting. Some of these are cursive, where the letters in a single word connect. While these might seem elegant or sophisticated, they are also less legible than typical fonts. Casual script fonts (e.g. Comic Sans) are a more recent development, imitating non-cursive handwriting. As a result, these typography have a non-serious tone and are rarely used by businesses in their official branding.

There are also famous decorative fonts such as Arnold Böcklin or Curlz. These are more often found in logos and titles. Decorative fonts have an impact, but they prize form over function. Keep in mind that highly decorative typography can be harder to read and undermine clarity. Therefore, use these sparingly for only a few words in a large size. They should never be your brand’s font for its usual typography.

Picking the Right Colour

Along with font, colour is a critical element of your brand’s typography and web design. While you will likely pick a primary colour that connects to your logo or other branding, you will want to pick a set of secondary colours. This ensures that you will have suitable colour contrast in all instances. For example, your business may have a blue logo and regularly use materials with white and purple backgrounds. While the same colour of blue will work for type on a white background, it will have much less contrast on the purple, especially those with colour deficiency. Pick a suitable set of colours that matches your branding while ensuring legibility.

Find Your Business’ Type

You should now have a sense of why picking the right font and typography for your website and branding is important. It’s a big decision now, but like the rest of your branding, picking that suitable font is something that should last for a long time and even multiple iterations of your website’s design for that trusted consistency. If you’re looking for further assistance in finding legible typography or finding a font that matches your branding’s character, be sure to contact Rosewood’s marketing team. Our web team will also be happy to help you update your website’s design with a new font or improve its accessibility.

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Google vs. Facebook Ads: Which Platform Is Best for Your Business?

A man and woman working at a laptop setting up their Google and Facebook ads

Online ads are essential for any business, and today Google and Meta / Facebook are the online advertising dyad. However, with two comes a choice: which one to use? Large companies have the budgets to advertise everywhere, but smaller businesses need to be more selective and ensure they’re advertising or focusing their budgets into the space with the most ROI. We’ll explain the strengths of each advertising platform and help you determine which is best for your business.

Why Google or Meta Ads

While there are other options, Google and Meta ads are the current industry powerhouses. Along with appearing on Google Search, Google Maps, and YouTube, Google ads also appear on nearly half of all websites on the internet. With Google processing over 8.5 billion searches a day and having over 91% of internet search market share, it’s a massive advertising network for reaching potential clients and customers.

Meta Ads aren’t as gargantuan of a network, but that doesn’t mean it’s a slouch either. They appear on all parts of Meta’s platform including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger to reach Meta’s 3.98 billion users. (Threads currently does not have ads, but some anticipate they will come later this year.) Meta Ads also go to the Facebook Audience Network. This system adds Meta ads into mobile applications and can be found in many of the most popular apps and mobile games.

Google and Meta Ads, Which is Better?

Both Google and Meta offer huge advertising platforms to help a business reach more clients and customers. However, there are subtle differences between each platform. They have different user contexts and advertising structure that give them individual strengths.

Features of Both Google and Meta Ads

Both platforms share some systems that help them excel for advertising to small and big businesses. First is that both platforms allow for a variety of ad formats, including text, images, and videos. Importantly, both platforms also feature a set of data tools. Google and Meta are extremely adept at allowing businesses to pick advertising targets based on a thorough assortment of demographics including gender, age, interests, locations, etc. Whether you know the kind of customers your business suits or have an audience where you want to expand, Google and Meta ads will let you target them. Following those targeted campaigns, Google and Meta then provide informative metrics and trackers to help analyze and improve your ads.

Google Ads Strengths

While Meta and Google share some of this key functionality, there are some important differences. A key distinction is the context of the ads. Google Ads appear while users are searching for something, whether it’s a product, answer to a question, video, etc. As a result, Google Ads are usually a form of pull marketing, where ads attempt to sway and grab someone who is already interested in that exact product/service or something related. This context also informs Google’s ad payment model. Google uses a pay-per-click model, where businesses target certain keywords or phrases where their ads should appear. These determine what kind of searches your ad appears in and your business will pay whenever someone clicks the ad.

Meta/Facebook Ads Strengths

The context for Meta ads can include searches, but primarily they appear in users’ feeds. As a result, Meta ads are usually characterized as push marketing. They slide a product or service in front of a user the system believes the user might be interested in but is not actively searching. As a result, Meta also uses a different auction/bidding system for determining where ads appear. This system considers various metrics and the bids a business has made for when and where ads appear. The other strength to consider is that since ads appear in feeds which are typically visual content, there are more opportunities for images and video ads in Meta.

Google Ads and Meta/Facebook Ads?

Since Google and Meta provide such a powerful advertising network with useful tools, either or both is useful for any small business. However, because of the different contexts where ads appear, certain businesses can perform better in one over the other.

When Google Ads Works Best for a Business

People often use Google to search to answer a question, whether it’s to find some information or a solution to a problem. As a result, B2B (business-to-business) or businesses that offer services perform well on Google ads. These ads will resonate with those searching about a problem because they are actively in the process of trying to find a resolution. Similarly, people looking for a kind of business or service on Google Maps will more likely be pulled to an ad for a relevant business. Similarly, product-based businesses can do well on Google ads. Users still search for products or items with Google. Plus, connecting your shop to Google shopping will help to highlight specific products in those searches.

When Meta Ads Works Best for a Business

Meta ads are more suggestive. People typically encounter Meta ads in recreational moments. As a result, they are usually not trying to find specific information or products. Instead, these ads play on pre-existing interests. While some research shows younger people are using social media searches more similarly to Google, most Meta ads are encountered while generally browsing social media content or playing games. As a result, product-based businesses can perform well on Meta Ads, since they can advertise specific products to users who have shown interest or follow other similar products/businesses. Service based businesses can also do well, where users might note or remember that business. An important note is that in these instances, the ads might not turn into an immediate conversion (which is why Meta uses an auction system rather than a PPC). Instead, they plant the seed for a later conversion when the users are actively searching for that kind of product. Because of your ad, your business returns to the front of their mind.

Choosing Between Two Powerhouses

Either Google Ads or Meta Ads is a powerful choice for any business. They offer a massive audience with in-depth functionality and metrics. Using both is not a terrible option but consider where and in what contexts your ads are likely to appear and have the most impact on each platform. Use their powerful data tools to determine where you can best invest your business’ advertising budget for the best ROI. Our digital marketing and advertising teams at Rosewood can help you start or revise your current strategies. If you’re ready to take control of some of the incredible power in Google and Meta ads, be sure to contact us.

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