The internet has drastically changed the way customers and companies interact. Once upon a time, customers needed to call a helpdesk or mail a physical letter to get a response from a company. Now they have numerous ways to immediately voice their approval or disapproval of a company. With Twitter, Facebook, email and even YouTube, consumers' voices are being heard louder, faster and with more frequency than ever before.

These new means of immediate communication can make or break a company. Having a game plan for how to react to customers is imperative for effective and speedy customer support. Here are three ways to move past antiquated customer support and engage with your customers:

1. Be proactive about listening

Thanks to social media, customers routinely turn to Twitter, Facebook, Blogs or YouTube to be heard. They might be talking about your product, company, or an experience they had with your team. It may be that the customer doesn’t know how to get a hold of the company in question, or maybe they are just too frustrated to take the time to reach out to the appropriate contact. If these types of customer sentiments aren’t on your radar, they can spiral out of control by influencing others and encouraging more frustration. Here’s an example from Twitter about the photo-sharing app Instagram:

Getting real sick and tired of my Instagram not working

— casey hill (@caseyhillx) April 17, 2014

If you aren’t listening for this type of feedback, you could be missing out on a huge opportunity to turn the customer’s opinion around, discover issues you hadn’t noticed before, or even understand what your company is doing right. So, how do you do it?

• Set up alerts. Create alerts with specific search terms like your company name or product. You’ll get emails when it’s mentioned in the news, blogs, or other main channels on the internet. Make sure to be specific with your alert keywords and use quotation marks to designate specific search terms.
• Routinely monitor Twitter and Facebook. There are lots of tools out there to make this easier on you and less labor intensive (including desk.com), but you’ll still need to include search queries to return relevant results. Before you put in search terms, do some research to see how people are talking about your product. Include alternate spellings or misspellings. Be sure to include the URL of your web page in order to catch any feedback that may have a link to your site without a mention of your name.

For seriously outstanding customer support, listening is a must, and it might even help win over users who would have otherwise been lost.

2. Break out of the “formal” box

Tone is important when talking to customers, and it’s going to differ based on whether you're a B2B or B2C company. There may be restrictions on what you can and can’t say, and a baseline for how formal correspondence should be. However, a change in tone can help win over customers and increase efficiency and speed for solving customer’s issues.

At Avocado, we make software for couples that’s fun and interactive. Our support persona mirrors that by using lots of smileys, jokes, and emotion when we communicate with our customers. While that’s not ideal for everyone, avoiding unnecessary correspondence, getting to the point, and being friendly rather than formal can go a long way for customers. When you eliminate complicated phrases, business-speak, or formalities in your correspondence, it helps your users feel less like customers and more like humans.

3. Acknowledge frustration, don’t ignore it

Sometimes, unsatisfied customers just want to be heard. If you ignore negative comments on social channels or email, you may leave customers with negative views that can spill over to their social circles. Studies have shown that 44% of 18- to 34-year-olds have used social media as an outlet to rant or rave about a company, brand or product. The same study showed that 45% of Americans who use social media said that friends’ reviews influence them in some way.

Dissatisfied customers aren’t always easy to deal with, but they are also the biggest opportunity to prove why your company is amazing. Turning around one upset customer can be worth more than 10 satisfied but silent customers. If you acknowledge criticism and ask for feedback instead, customers will most likely leave the interaction with a better view of your company, even if you don’t have a solution for their specific problem.

This post was originally published on the award-winning Desk.com blog.

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