When customers aren’t happy with a brand or product, you can bet your money that they will tell someone about it. Thanks to the social media boom, consumers now have an easily-accessible and seamless way to let the company know about their gripes.
You would assume that companies leverage social media to help improve their company’s PR, but A T Kearney’s Annual Social Media Survey revealed the shocking results that 70 percent of consumers’ complaints fall on deaf ears.
To be honest, I am not surprised of the results because I am in that 70 percent. I don’t openly complain much, but there have been a few occasions that I am so upset with a company, that I want them to know about it.
In such cases, I will usually tweet at them or write on their Facebook wall, but to this day, not only have I not received any sort of consolation or compensation for my bad experience, I’ve never received an apology or response of any sort.
A research study done in the UK found that 36% of consumers, or 18 million people, are using social media to ‘talk’ to companies; people surveyed said they prefer using social media as opposed to a call center because of the ease of use.
I attribute these poor customer service experiences to a lack of internal communication within company walls. Social media teams should be closely linked to a company’s customer service center and should not be held hostage in the arms of the marketing or PR departments.
Jim Close, managing director of Datapoint had something great to say regarding this topic:
“Social media tools are for two-way dialogue with customers as well as a marketing channel. They differ from more traditional media because often the interaction is globally-visible and there is potential for massive reputational impact. The organizations that learn this lesson the fastest – and use contact center systems to do this effectively – will be the ones that win the customer retention race.”
If you or your company are guilty of failing to utilize your social media channels as pseudo customer service centers, you’re missing the mark; and soon, your customers.
-Lance Brown
