Report: Many Companies Falling Short On Social Media Customer Service

Caid Christiansen• June, 12 2015

As if the world needed any more proof that it’s easy to be bad at social media, a new report from The Northridge Group titled The State of Customer Service 2015 found that social media is the slowest way to resolve customer service issues.

The report, which examined current customer attitudes toward online customer service from more than 1,000 respondents, AdWeek notes, found that many (33%) respondents believed customer service on social media doesn’t meet expectations, while only 14% believed it exceeded expectations.

What’s more, 63% of customers had to contact a brand at least twice before their inquiry was resolved. 33% of those surveyed said they received no response at all to their social media inquiry. To pile it on, 32% of those surveyed had to wait a day for a response (despite 17% of customers expecting a response within minutes, and 25% within an hour), and 30% had to wait a week or longer to get a reply.

In short, just like the title says, many companies are falling short on social media customer service.

Perhaps this is part of the reason that so many companies’ social media has been found to have little impact on the customer journey. Customers expect responses within the hour, if not within minutes, and more often than not, companies are taking days or weeks to get back to them. This is a sad state of affairs, especially if you’re one of those companies guilty of ignoring your customers on social media.

Gone are the days when marketing was all about one-way advertisements in newspapers, on the radio, and on billboards on the side of the highway. Those still have their place in some cases, but you can’t run your social media like you run a newspaper ad. Newspaper readers can’t talk back to their ad. (Well, they could, but it wouldn’t get them very far.) On social media—social­ media—customers can, and should, talk back.

If you don’t have the capabilities to keep up with this type of response in-house, either find an expert who does or don’t bother. Quality customer service isn’t optional—it’s imperative.