Business customer service in Social Media
One of the main advantages of social media is the ability to connect with customers, interacting in real time in order to improve their experience. Hence the need to offer a fast and effective care that promotes engagement and cultivates satisfied customers.
According to data collected from Zendesk 80% of companies think that offering their customers a high-quality care through social networks will impact positively in customer satisfaction and retention. However, this reality does not match the perception of customers as 92% are dissatisfied with the care received by the brands.
Brands usually take up to 15 hours to respond to their customers through Facebook
Data collected from Marketingquery’s study this month shows that companies strive to improve the response time and the number of requests served, but this area still needs further improvement. On average, companies adhere to just a fifth of the requests received through social networks. Also, the fast response is more than you should expect. The brands usually take up to 15 hours to respond to their customers through Facebook. A time, that fortunately is reduced by almost half in Twitter (8 hours), but remains too high nonetheless.
What is the average term of desirable response by customers in social networks? The main advantage of social media is its immediacy; their ability to interact in real time, thus, 32% of customers expect to get an answer in half an hour, or at most 60 minutes (42%).
Still consumers tend to be very permissive, and extend this reasonable minimum period to 24 hours.
Poor management of social media relationships
What are the main fears of businesses and professional on social networks? Acting on social media on behalf of a brand is a great responsibility. Not surprisingly, our message can reach thousands of people in seconds;so an inappropriate message can have serious consequences for the brand.
Studies have shown the great concern of the brands by promoting engagement with the audience through social networks (42.2%), expressing interest in building a strong and stable community around the brand.
Therefore, and although it may seem a surprising reach, even surpassing the worry and fear of negative comments and a crises of reputation, losing followers is a stain on the record for many businesses and professionals.
But this seemingly selfish fear has nothing to do with pretending that a greater number of fans and followers are happy, but with the fact that this loss is a result of poor management of their own relationships.
Brands are expected to respond within an hour on Twitter
The next time you think about putting off a response to that tweet your brand just received on Twitter – or not responding at all – think again. According to research, brands are expected to respond within an hour on Twitter, more than 70 percent of users expect to hear back from the brand they’re interacting with on Twitter, and 53 percent want a response within the hour.
Specifically, Twitter has managed to reduce the customers waiting time, yet more than a third of brands (35%) needed more than a day to meet the demands of their customers.
Benefits of Integration Social Media in the Digital Marketing Plan
For this reason, marketers and social media managers should strive to increase the rate of interactions with customers, in order to strengthen those links and build confidence in their relationships. Another goal is to improve the degree of brand loyalty, encouraging feedback from customers and improve customer relationships through these channels
To achieve these objectives, the vast majority of companies considered essential the integration of social media within their digital marketing plan. This will have an overview of the relationship with the customer, from all points of contact; allowing them to direct all their efforts to improve the customer experience.
Also, another widespread fear corresponds to the difficulty or inability in many cases to actually measure the effectiveness and return on their own actions.
For businesses, it is important to know the impact of these initiatives and the development of its social media strategy, but fixing a favorable return on investment in the medium – short term, continues to occupy a prominent place among these fears and doubts.