The fact that customers are turning to the social media avenues of Facebook and Twitter to contact companies doesn’t surprise us at all. However, new research has found that the only contact channel that modern businesses guarantee a response that is reliable and the quickest is social media.
In a study of 2,000 consumers, they discovered that 80% of those who contacted a company through various social media channels was able to get a response within 12 hours. A major contrast compared to email which gave consumers a 37% chance of response in a 12 hour time frame.
eDigitalResearch, the company who carried out the study, looked into overall customer experience, customer loyalty, experiences across varying channels. They concluded that social media is the only customer channel of contact where a response is a cert. The customers who had contacted a company via social media during the survey all receive a response.
“Whilst there are still a limited number of consumers using social media channels to contact brands (our survey showed that just 2% have recently their Facebook, Twitter or other social media accounts to get in touch with a brand), it is currently the only channel that ensures that all consumers receive a response following their contact,” said Derek Eccleston, the Commercial Director at eDigitalResearch.
What’s even more interesting is that the companies took longer to reply to a customer’s who were making a complaint compared to those who were sending positive feedback. This being said we can only assume that it’s much quicker to reply with a “thank you” compared to analysing and providing feedback for a customer complaint. Even though a quick response advising users that the complaint is being looked into is a great first step.
“These results show that there are currently major disparities across customer touch points – measures should be taken to ensure that departments and teams work together to provide the best contact experience possible. Improving the customer experience should be a business wide operation,” says Eccleston.
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