How to Handle Social Media Customer Support in a Natural Disaster

by Blue Ocean in Blog, Customer Service Outsourcing, Social Media Customer Support

 

In today’s highly connected world, businesses everywhere are facing the reality that more and more consumers are turning to social media to voice their questions and concerns regarding a company’s services and products.

So this raises the obvious questions: What exactly is the current state of social media customer support? Who should be responsible for managing and responding to social media complaints? Is “first tweet resolution” even a reasonable goal?

And, as we experienced, it also raises some not-so-obvious questions, such as how to manage social media support during a natural disaster?

Our new social media support initiative was just six days in when Hurricane Sandy hit the Atlantic coast. Our clients’ in-house contact center was underwater, leaving their server out of commission. In the midst of this chaos, outsourced social media support became a critical connection to their customers.

It quickly became clear that social media is fundamentally about community. Supporting that community – whether in a disaster or daily life – became our priority.

Read more to find out how we leveraged the social media channel in the face of an epic natural disaster.

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