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Increasingly, millennials are starting their own companies, managing larger staffs, and pursuing higher profits than their baby boomer predecessors, according to the 2016 BNP Paribas Global Entrepreneur Report.

Sixty-four percent of millennials believe social media is an effective customer service channel, compared to just 27% of baby boomers who share that belief, according to Microsoft’s 2016 State of Global Customer Service Report. Again, 52% of millennial consumers had actively used social media to ask customer service questions, compared to just 13% of baby boomer consumers.

Since millennials love to get customer support via social media, they’re also more likely to want to offer it to their customers when they’re the company founders. If you’re a millennial founder, here are some tips to help you and your team offer witty and effective customer support on social media.

First, it’s important for your brand reputation that you monitor your social media platforms all the time and respond to complaints before they injure your brand.

Ignoring complaints can have a double whammy: The complaint sits there on your social media page, and the complainer - especially if that’s a savvy millennial - becomes angrier when his issue is not addressed and begins to complain more, on all of your social media platforms, on their personal pages, and even on other places.

This is devastating to your brand reputation.
Companies respond to customer complaints on social media differently. Such responses have ranged from the truly great to the awful, such as this one from Pigalle Restaurant in Boston.

The very best responses are those that solve issues and complaints but do so in a creative way – so creative, in fact, that those responses go viral and bring huge numbers of new followers. A double win for you business - your brand looks cool and you get potential new leads.

Here are a few examples of some of the best responses by content marketers and customer service reps - responses that show personality, provide entertainment and help them win the hearts and wallets of the millennial consumers in particular.


Smart Car
This tiny American car is occasionally laughed at, despite the fact that its electric model is pollution-free and its gas model gets gas mileage as good as a small motorcycle. Their social media marketers are epic when it comes to retorting to various jokes around their product.

When Clayton Hove tweeted, “Saw a bird had crapped on a Smart Car. Totaled it,” Smart Car quickly responded with a humorous graphic suggesting he must be mistaken.


Screenshot taken on Twitter
Screenshot taken on Twitter

This tweet went viral and gave great brand recognition to the company.


JetBlue
Alexa Burrows, passenger on a flight, tweeted Jetblue that she was upset that she was going home – perhaps the vacation was just too good to end. In jest, she asked to have a parade at the gate when she landed.

The JetBlue customer rep who read that tweet got on it immediately. When the passenger landed, she was met with a greeting entourage:


Screenshot taken on Twitter
Screenshot taken on Twitter

According to Laurie Meacham in a recent interview, JetBlue has passed responsibility for responding to social media comments to three teams – Customer Commitment, Marketing, and Communications.

Spreading it out among so many guarantees that responses are rapid, and that there may just always be a creative on board who can come up with a unique response that will spread and get popular support.


Other ways to be creative on social media
Customer relations are not only a matter of responding well to complaints and issues. There are many ways for companies to be witty and humorous on social media when engaging their followers.

Even companies in niches that many would consider a bit boring have managed to do this well. Geico in the insurance niche, for instance, has its mascot, the gecko, who has his own popular Facebook page and Twitter account.
 
Likewise, Progressive Insurance's Flo, FilterBuy and GoTranscript have mascots who have social media accounts that are witty. They share funny videos, jokes and memes and directly offer support to customers. You can also spend time developing creative and witty posts or contests that will serve to increase your following and spread your brand. Even if you don’t always provide witty responses to customers with issues, you could still provide rapid response and solve those issues.

People are on social media for conversations, for relationships and to be entertained and inspired. So when you engage your followers and customers on social media, aim to entertain them and make their lives easier. In turn, they would reward you by sharing your content, buying your stuff and spreading the word about your brand.