Are you considering social media as a formal support channel for Customer Care? If so, the first questions you’re probably asking yourself are: “What kind of person belongs in the role of social media specialist?” and “What kind of skills and knowledge do they need?”  Based on our experiences and best practices in this quickly emerging customer response channel, here are a few guidelines:

Start with the people who love coming to work each day, who can articulate your brand values, and understand how your business makes its money.

When putting your initial team in place, understand that you’re creating public-facing Brand Advocates for your company. The people in this role are directly influencing your company’s perception not only with the one person that they are responding to, but potentially with tens, hundreds, or even thousands or more of that customer’s followers, friends and family.

On the social web, your representatives will respond publicly: This means they directly influence perceptions of “the masses”, not only the one person who posted a comment.  When you add the ease (and even expectation) of reforwarding, retweeting and linking content, the response your social media representative generates has more power than just one interaction. “Word of mouth” in social media is taken to exponentially higher levels than ever before. Therefore, you must inherently trust that the decisions your social representatives make are the right ones for your company’s brand in marketplace. So, start with the people you already have that understand the risks and rewards on serving on the social front lines.

Tap internal subject matter experts who positively influence the external customer experience.

While decision and filtering engines help direct specific inquiries to specialized representatives, it is important to have social media representatives who know (or can quickly find) relevant information and respond in a customer-centric manner to customers. In most social media interactions, the person who posted expects a response from your company, even when they were “just talking” about your company. Social media is a critical customer touch point which requires a correct content response and a properly positioned response – both are essential, since the social media representative is essentially taking your company into the conversation.

The potential opportunities for delighting customers in social interactions are enormous. You need social media representatives who can strategically understand this power, and then take tactical actions to fully leverage internal options to maximize customer satisfaction.

Choose problem solvers with outstanding interpersonal and writing skills. 

Although the social media channel is a new and emerging response channel, many of the traditional customer service skills apply. Solving customer problems efficiently and responding effectively is still the name of the game. Because of the nature of social media, it is imperative that written responses are impactful, professional and can pass the test of, “Is this response something I would approve of hundreds of people seeing?” Evaluating an applicant’s writing skills is strongly encouraged prior to hiring for asocial media position.

While social media is known for its use of acronyms and spelling shortcuts, an appropriate command of spelling and grammar is a non-negotiable expectation. The image of your company is on the line with every social media response generated. And once a response is sent, it often will take on a life of its own. While a poorly crafted, unprofessional response to a customer that is posted publicly can really hurt your company’s image, few things can benefit your company more than an outstanding, professional customer experience with your company for everyone to see.

Find multi-taskers who can handle the details yet understand the big picture and want to improve your company.

Like traditional customer service efforts, you need social media representatives who are highly efficient and can do more than one thing at a time. There will be multiple posts coming in, and the need to act quickly to provide an effective response to each post may require some real mental gymnastics. Social media representatives are often involved in ongoing conversations with more than one customer at a time: Being detail-oriented and organized enough to keep everything straight is a great attribute to look for in this type of agent.

Along with detail, the social agent often needs to assess emerging trends and discover how seemingly disparate issues “fit together” into a bigger picture. People who can naturally identify root causes then help drive improvements through the organization can be game changers for you.

Remember, your social media representatives are on the front line hearing directly from customers in “real time” scenarios. Unlike traditional customer service, the customer hasn’t called your company (yet); instead, they’re just talking about it, in public with their friends and followers. Social media can therefore provide a viewpoint which is “ahead of the curve”, which gives your company valuable data to be acted upon which may potentially provide “fixes” before a problem reaches critical mass. Having front line employees who understand this dynamic and are able to shape customer comments into improvements for your company is part of the payoff.

To recap, the ideal Social Media Representative should be a(n):

• Brand Advocate – they must love your company and act as an extension of your brand
• Very customer-centric thinker who automatically puts himself or herself in the customer’s shoes
• Subject matter expert on company policies and procedures – or can quickly find the answer
• Strong problem solver with solid decision making skills
• Outstanding written communicator, including grammar/editing
• Multi-tasker who enjoys the challenge of handling more than one thing at a time
• Organized thinker who is detail oriented
• Strategic thinker who can understand the power of social media and help continually improve your company

Look back at that list: and to think that you thought social media itself was difficult! Finding someone—let alone a team—that fits this description may be hard. But these people are out there, and most likely are in your organization now. Find them, develop them, and build social capabilities into your customer care organization. Your customers will thank you, in public.