Facebook recently announced coming changes to brand pages that could dramatically transform the platform as a customer service channel. 

Much of the focus around these developments has been on the timeline's potential for marketing and creative teams to brand their social presence more heavily. Yet the announcement companies should be most sharply aware of is the development of private fan-page messaging. With the advent of new page timelines, customers will easily be able to hit a ‘Message’ button to contact companies directly. And Conversocial is the first to integrate private messages, so that these can be managed easily through the tool.

In a recent investigation into the different types of messages received by retailers on the largest social networks, Facebook and Twitter, we discovered that Twitter is currently much more heavily used for customer service. 32% of all tweets are real customer service issues, compared with only 7% of Facebook comments and posts. 

With the arrival of page messaging, akin to Twitter’s Direct Messages, the number of consumers reaching out to brands through social media for assistance with real issues will accelerate. Facebook already attracts a much higher volume of communication; the growth of customer service requests to the same level as Twitter means a 4-5 times increase in volume for companies on  Facebook as private brand messaging picks up speed. 

The option to private message the companies they buy from will encourage even more Facebook users to reach out. And this won’t just have a novelty effect. Facebook has already seen a huge growth in usage as a customer service channel as consumers spend more and more time on the platform and respond to brands’ calls to engage. Now they have a choice as to whether they want an issue to be public or private. Historically, customers have often turned to social media as a last straw, having failed to make progress through other routes. Private messaging closes the loop - there’s no need to turn to the call centre - you can now engage with a company at every level through Facebook. Ignore customers here, and it’s easier than ever before for them to move the problem public. But this shouldn’t just be held in fear; it also makes it much easier for customer service representatives to follow an issue at every touch point, as more and more problems are raised and resolved within social channels. 

There’s no way companies can fail to take social customer service seriously with this change. Messaging will be switched on for all pages. It’s a clearer call than ever before that your customers can interact with you and the very concept creates expectations; turn messages off, and you push them to complain publicly on your timeline. There’s no way to avoid addressing their issues. 

And so the evolution of social media as a complete communication channel continues. Conversocial allows companies to plug in real customer service agents to Facebook and Twitter, allowing them to isolate and respond to real customer issues. We moved quickly to be the first provider to integrate Facebook messages, pre-empting a surge in the platform’s customer service usage. With social customer service agents set to handle more sensitive information through private social avenues, audit and accountability become more important than ever before. A unified view of every customer and tracking of all data through Conversocial means that customer service through social channels can be treated as seriously as email or phone.

Instead of trying to control the kinds of conversations they have with their customers through social media, companies should focus on getting prepared for serious customer service in Facebook; anticipating the needs of your fans might just pleasantly surprise them. 

InsideFacebook wrote all about our integration of Facebook Messages and how it works, here.

If you’d like to know more about Facebook page Messages, what they mean for customer service and how you can manage them through Conversocial, download our free Quickguide.

Follow us on Twitter here

Join our LinkedIn group on Best Practice Social Customer Service for tips and tricks

If you haven't already, sign up for a Conversocial account so you can get ahead and take control of your Messages.

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We hosted a webinar last week showing what social customer service is, why it's important, and how Conversocial helps to manage it better.

I covered some of the research we've condcuted (available on our resources page), and then went on to show how Conversocial's visibility, priority and proactive features help to deal with the problems uncovered by this research.

For anyone who missed the live webinar, here's a full recording. 

I'll be giving a webinar every month; the next will be in March. If you have any suggestions of what you'd like to cover, it would be great to hear them!

Email your suggestions to dan@conversocial.com, or pop a comment below!

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Last night we hosted a meetup for people in London learning to code on Codecademy - an online platform that teaches you how to code. It was pretty awesome.

About 20 keen coders-to-be turned up, brandishing laptops and snacks from Tesco. We herded them into our jazz cafe (our little eating/meeting area), where there were two or three "quiet" tables for people getting with collaboratively working on Codecademy exercises. A bunch of other people were then by the sofa standing/sitting and generally chilling out, getting their geek on with some awesome banter on JavaScript, computers, startups and more! A big shout out to Gareth, one of our developers, who helped people out with their code, and generally making people feel welcome! Here's a picture of him listening to what one of the chaps had to say.

The range of people was pretty wide - we had all sorts turning up to learn how to code. Not only was the age variety colourful, but the professions they had was very flavourful too- ranging from banking and lawyering to being students! And of course, there was a Customer Happiness Manager in the mix :)

We're very proud to be supporting people learning how to code in London, it's such a valuable skill to have, and definitely the way of the future!

Follow Dan here, and Gareth, here.

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Dan Wong joined us in 2011 to help with customer service and account management. He's done such a great job at keeping our customers happy that we've promoted him to our first 'Customer Happiness Manager'! It's his job to do whatever it takes to ensure you are as happy as possible, and have the best experience with Conversocial. Whether that's by improving our support site, giving webinars, or even arranging on-site training for our enterprise customers. You can follow Dan on Twitter here.

The next webinar Dan's running is on 9th Feb 2012, 15:00 GMT. It's covering the best use of Conversocial to deliver effective customer service over Facebook and Twitter. Be quick if you want a space, there are only 10 left! Sign up here. 

And our new marketing manager...

Also a big congratulations to Anna Drennan. Anna's been part of the Conversocial family since 2010 - just after we launched. She joined to help with our marketing, and after a great year where our brand, web visitors and positioning have all grown tremendously she has been promoted to Marketing Manager. You can follow her on Twitter here. 

Congratulations both! 

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Today we’re pleased to announce that Scott Lake, Mobile Product Manager at Priceline.com is the lucky winner of our Social Media World Forum prize draw – two tickets to fly from New York to London with Virgin Airways.

Following Conversocial’s coming to America, we wanted to offer Social Media World Forum’s visitors the chance to visit our home town, London. Scott will be making the trip to London with his wife, “to try and make those palace guards smile and figure out how to drive on the other side of the road”.

We’re looking forward to meeting Scott on his trip to the UK!

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