Brass Tack Thinking: Secret Social Media Success WeaponRemember when the standard was to answer the telephone by the third or fourth ring? Or to return a call within 24 hours?

Responsiveness still wins the social media game, every time.

And it’s not about using fancy technology – we all know how much we love getting an automated system to take our phone call – but about putting human resources at the points of contact for the places where your customers are trying to find and talk to you. Because nothing – I repeat nothing – can demonstrate that you “get” being social as a business like simply being responsive, and being willing to dedicate the capital and people necessary to make that happen at scale to the best of your ability.

Of note: Responsiveness doesn’t always mean having the answer on the spot. Responsiveness simply means saying “I see you over there.” It’s acknowledging that you’ve heard and seen that someone is trying to reach you, and you’re reaching out in turn to let them know that you’re on it. That gesture alone means everything in social media, and while resolving a problem or a question is still the end game, simply being available and present is half the battle.

So what do I tackle first?

The timeframes below are certainly not scientific by any means, but they’re assembled from experiences with lots of companies of varying sizes, including the community team I’ve worked with for the past several years, and they seem to be ranges that work. Obviously your mileage will vary based on resources, your customers, and such, but it’s something for discussion.

The other thing that helps is to look at a triage type system for what to prioritize and when.

You’ll want to take negative comments or complaints first, because they have a short lifespan and your customer or prospect is already upset. Then you’ll want to tackle the rave reviews and glowing compliments, because those right there are your advocates in action, and your most powerful volunteer marketing and reputation vehicle.

Obviously you’ll need to use this magic thing called judgment when dealing with all the stuff in between. A general business question from your largest customer might not be a complaint, but if they represent a significant portion of your revenue, handling them with priority helps acknowledge that you realize that. Or an inquiry from a brand new prospect might be of average priority until they’ve been referred by the chairman of your board.

The reality is that some customers and situations do need to take priority over others. It’s always been so, and that’s okay. It’s not to say that one person or company is more worthwhile as a human or a business, but we have to make some subjective decisions in the moment.

Write some general guidelines, and publish them for your front line responders. When exceptions crop up, document them and discuss them in your team meetings regularly. Do some scenario planning and adjust your processes along the way. It’ll never be perfect, but it’ll help you sort out the anomalies and one-off exceptions from the more common situations.

Response Times: Some Guidelines

Email: If it’s a complaint or a problem, try to answer with at least an acknowledgement within 1-2 hours, with a statement of when you expect to have more information to relay. The outside window is within the same business day.

For most general business inquiries via email (or other message systems like LinkedIn or Facebook), 24 hours is typically an acceptable timeframe, but helps if you can communicate that somewhere – say, on the same profile or page where you post the proper email addresses – to set expectations for your customers and community.

Twitter: You’ve 5-10 minutes, 30 at the outside if you’re really doing it well. Yes. I know this sucks. But Twitter is the real-time fleeting stream of the internet, and very much like a new switchboard.

As long as mechanisms of this nature exist, whether Twitter itself or another iteration, we’ll need to wrap that kind of timeframe into our work like we’ve done the phone on our desks. It moves fast, and people gravitate to it knowing that and expecting fast response. Do you need to acknowledge every passing mention or retweet? Not necessarily.

But when people are seeking your attention specifically on Twitter these days, it’s likely they’ve tried another channel and not gotten the response they wanted (or expect that they won’t). Publish hours of operation in your bio if you like, but recognize too that if you have round the clock customer service in other channels, eventually Twitter or its equivalent will need to be part of that, too.

Facebook: Again, for complaints or negative comments, you’ll want to be on that within 30 minutes if you can. Questions or general customer service issues without urgency can probably wait an hour or two. Commenting on general conversation or comment streams can sit anywhere from within a few hours to within the business day.

Blogs and Forums: Blog or forum comments work a lot like Facebook; keep a steady eye on them. No, you don’t have to respond to every single comment unless that’s the precedent you want to set. But questions, complaints, or direct inquiries need your attention ASAP, but at least within the same business day.

Don’t forget, too, that when you ask people to submit information – be it a contact request, a subscription, a reservation – acknowledgement is a good thing. Confirmation emails with details of when they can expect to hear back from you, or with a reiteration of the details they’ve submitted. An SMS reply with links, directions, or relevant phone numbers. A DM to remind them that you’ll follow up via email. Again, the name of the game here is to say “We see you, and we’re here to respond.”

Success Is In Timeless Principles

With so many companies striving for some score, matrix, campaign or whatever to show that they’re successful in social, many are still missing the most simple tactic of all: Answer the phone when it rings. The phone has morphed and splintered, sure. We have more channels than we ever have.

But we as businesses need to be where our customers are, not always only where we’d like them to be. And our customers might be using different tools to get our attention right now, but we must learn to adapt to the way people communicate, whether it’s familiar to us or not.

Keep in mind too that because most of this is out in the open, it’s not just that single customer that’s watching, but the community at large, too. Your responsiveness sets a tone for the way you do business in general. And people do notice.

The expectations are already being set. It’s a challenge. It takes time, organization and resources. It takes revisiting policies and processes and infrastructure. It takes learning and smart testing and experimentation.

But it’s definitely happening. And you too can make a vast difference in the experience and first impressions your customers have with you online by simply making it a point, whenever you can, to say:

“We see you there.”