Today’s post is written by a guest blogger, Harry Rollason. Harry is with Useful Social Media, and I will be presenting at their New York Conference on Social Media and Customer Service next week. Plus, Harry interviewed me about my book, The Hidden Power of Your Customers: Four Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers. Here is some food for thought from Harry.
The rise of social media has changed customer service beyond recognition.
In today’s competitive landscape, customer service is more important than ever. A company’s reputation for satisfying their customers has never been so valuable.
It’s worth pointing out that it takes three times as much internal resources to acquire a new customer as it does to retain one. In these lean times it puts an awful lot of pressure on companies to ensure retention rates are as high as possible. And good customer service is a great tool to do this.
But are companies getting it? Does it look like big corporates are responding to this change in the landscape?
The short answer is no:
- Over 58% of tweeters who have tweeted about a bad experience have never received a response from the offending company
- 55% of consumers expect a response the same day to an online complaint – yet only 29% receive one
- 43% of consumers say that companies should use social media to solve customers’ problems
These statistics lay out clearly how the game has changed. Customers will no longer be happy with ‘old style’ customer service. To satisfy your customers, it’s essential to have a responsive social media presence.
To be fair, things are changing. By the end of the year, 75% of US-based companies expect to use social media for customer service. It’s a reaction to the changing game. Gone are the days when social media was all about marketing through Twitter and Facebook. It’s now an integral tool to ensure you are responsive not reactive, contactable not aloof and authentic not robotic. And increasingly, it’s about solving customer’s issues in real time through social channels, showing your dedication and transparency to your customers.
I ramble I know, as I have a tendency of doing, but there is a reason for my rant. On my return back to the office last week – having recently returned from #CSMSF and #CSMNY – I stumbled across some great examples of companies embracing the power of social media for customer service and I thought I would share them with you. It looks like companies are trying to solve this problem, but aren’t quite there yet. So maybe I can help.
We’ve got some free presentations from Gina Debogovich, Director and Social Media Leader from BestBuy – on how BestBuy have rolled out Twelpforce and made it company policy. And Baochi Nguyen, PR and Social Media Manager from Boingo on the best ways to create a customer service centric policy at your company – all interesting stuff!
You can grab a copy of both presentations by heading here.
Or if you would rather talk than read – then connect with me at @HRollasonUSM or drop some feedback in the comments below!
Subscribe in a reader
Roy, thanks for sharing some great statistics on social media! As you stated so well, companies need to use social media as another effective channel of communication for solving customer issues, as well as reinforcing compliments. The technical tools to find social media postings about any service and product are available. Businesses need to respond quickly (within an hour or two) and employ staff who will make the customer feel appreciated, welcomed and important. Social media is just one more way of communicating and companies need to join the band wagon! Richard Shapiro, The Center For Client Retention @richardrshapiro
The game has changed indeed. Not only for large corps but for little places such as ours. Social media is the great equalizer. Social media allows building a business much more enjoyable than at any other time in history. The under 30 crowd will go no where else to find their wares so one must be where they are because soon enough they will rule the world. Yes social media can be a double edged sword so care must be used.
We had a complaint recently that spread to others and jobs were being canceled by that afternoon. It was frightening how fast word spread. We called on the canceled jobs and apologized via voicemail immediatly. We strategized and waited til morning to call on the original complaint as we thought cooler heads would be more constructive. Sure enough we were right and by the next day all was well and our customer was not nearly as upset. We were able to respond quickly to the complaint and without social media that complaint would of lasted forever in our customers mind and all of his or her contacts also. And as an extra reward the customers who had canceled earlier in the week called back a few days later and allowed us to assist them too. None of this would of been possible without social media.
Yes social media forces you to be razor sharp in your dealings with customers. Helping you build a business faster, easier and much more enjoyable that ever before in the history of mankind. What a wonderful time to be in business to be alive as a whole new way of doing EVERYTHING is amongst us….
Thank you for sharing social media statistics
Such an eye-opening article. No doubt companies are using social media to reach out to their market. But with the stastistics shown here, they are not utlizing it to the fullest when addressing customer concerns. Of course clients want immediate response. With social media, the response time can be cut down.
But in fairness to the companies, certain customer complaints are better handled outside the social media networks – especially those that can be damaging for their business. Regardless, quick response must be given.