From the course: Serving Customers Using Social Media (2019)

Use an informal but professional tone

From the course: Serving Customers Using Social Media (2019)

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Use an informal but professional tone

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- There is nothing more out of place than writing in a too-formal style in social media. It's like wearing a three-piece suit to a barbecue. It just screams out that you don't even know where you are. So while we might greet a customer in an email with dear Mr. Smith, we are not going to start a tweet or Facebook message that way. We'll use an informal tone, something along the lines of hi, John, hey, John, what's up, John? How can I help? Of course, the risk is that in choosing an informal tone we'll go too far and veer into the unprofessional. Besides the obvious problem that unprofessional writing embarrasses our company, there's another reason to remain professional. Many of our customers in social media are upset and are contacting us to complain or ask for help with a difficult-to-solve problem. If we respond to them in an unprofessional manner, we're just going to make them angrier. So how do we choose an informal tone that's not unprofessional? I'll make an analogy. Writing to customers in social media should use a nice-blue-jeans tone. By this I mean that you should use a tone that's informal, blue jeans, but don't choose the pair with the big grease stain on the knee. Choose the nice jeans, the pair you bought recently and actually fold and put away when you're not wearing them. Let me give you a couple of examples of social customer service responses that are both informal and professional. The customer tweeted I got takeout chips and salsa at the Springfield store. I know your chips are salted, but seriously? About one cup of salt. I nearly died of thirst. The restaurant responded thank you for that info. I'm really sorry the chips were too salty. I'll follow up with the Springfield team, so we can keep an even hand on the salt shaker next time. Patrick's response is informal but professional. On the informal side, he's used an abbreviation and an exclamation point. Instead of writing something rather formal like we can avoid over-salting our tortilla chips, he wrote keep an even hand on the salt shaker next time which conveys the same message in more casual words, and Patrick's professionalism is in place. He let the customer know her complaint was heard and that he shared it with the Springfield team who can prevent it from happening again. Now be careful. You're walking a fine line with this blue-jeans tone in your social responses to customers. If you're too casual, you could be unclear or insulting. So use the would-I-say-that - to-a-customer-on-the-phone standard. If you talk to the customer face to face in a friendly, casual style, then you can safely use those same words in social.

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