Opening hours/Service times question reply templates

Providing exceptional customer service can be a contributing factor for gaining more clients and prospects that are loyal to your business and recommend it to others.

With the rise of social media, one of the activities that are without a doubt the most profitable for businesses is to extend customer service assistance to social media channels. This brings multiple benefits such as optimization of resources, speed, automated responses, and more.

However, social media customer service only operates well if it comprises of processes that are organized logically. It’s not only about sending generic canned responses like “thank you for your message, we’ll get back to you soon.”

The work of social media customer service representatives must occur during predefined hours, and social media users must be informed about when that availability is. One of the worst customer service sins is to leave a customer hanging without informing them about when they can expect an answer.

Benefits of planning social media customer service

If you decide to provide your customers with assistance via social media and do it right, you can expect many benefits. Below are a few of them.

• Costs: the price of providing customer service through social networks is lower than through traditional channels, such as contact centers or email, because one representative can handle multiple queries at the same time.
• Speed: social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter eliminate the downtime that occurs with other customer service channels caused by response delays and hold times.
• Social media is a direct and accessible form of communication because it enables companies to talk to customers without barriers, and through a channel the customers choose themselves.
• Reputation: the use of Twitter and Facebook for customer service can improve a company’s reputation as conflicts are resolved in a public way.
• Extra knowledge: customer service through social media allows you to gather opinions and feedback from your customers in real-time.

Social media opening hours/service times questions reply template ideas

Social media opening hours questions reply template – for social media customer service

Social media opening hours questions reply template – business opening hours

Social media opening hours questions reply template – general message 1

Social media opening hours questions reply template  – general message 2

Social media opening hours questions reply template 5 – if you don’t provide customer service on social media

Social media opening hours – Frequently asked questions

Should I put opening hours in the description of my business social media profile?

Yes – if your service times are limited, you should inform your customers about the hours you’re able to assist them. It’s best to put this information in the profile description. You can also include those times in a message window on Facebook. If there is any customer service channel available outside of your social media opening hours, you can also inform clients about it and let them know how to reach that available contact method.

What are the typical social media customer service hours?

There’s no universal rule for that. You should make this decision based on your staff’s availability (longer service hours mean higher salaries for customer service agents) and your customers’ activity. For example, if you notice that your followers are most active during “regular” office hours from 9 to 5, it’s logical to provide social media assistance during that time. 

However, if your customers prefer to contact your brand via social media in the evening and don’t submit many inquiries in the morning, it would make more sense and be more convenient for your users to provide social media assistance in the evenings.

Should I provide 24/7 social media service?

It’s not necessary for most businesses. However, if your brand operates globally and your customers are based in different time zones, it would be wise to have at least a few customer service reps working different shifts. Not so long ago one international airline surprised its users by stating that they only provided social media customer service between 8 am and 4 pm in the EDT time zone, which was not really acceptable for that type of global business.