Do you answer the social telephone?
This poll analysis was written by Jeremy Victor, president of Make Good Media and editor-in-chief of B2Bbloggers.com. For more of his writing, visit B2Bbloggers.com and follow him on Twitter and Google+.
SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues.
This week we asked: How long does it usually take you to respond to a customer complaint made via a social channel? The results:
- Less than 1 hour: 33.87%
- 1 to 2 hours: 29.03%
- 2 to 4 hours: 12.9%
- 4 to 6 hours: 7.26%
- 6 to 12 hours: 4.03%
- 12 to 24 hours: 6.45%
- 1 to 2 days: 3.23%
- More than 2 days: 3.23%
Social customer service is alive and well, based on the results from this week’s poll, with 83% of respondents saying they answer customer complaints via social channels in less than six hours. At first these poll results surprised me – 83% under six hours was much higher than I expected. Though upon some reflection (realizing it is 2012), and how quickly negative customer feedback can spread across the Web (think United Breaks Guitars), these results actually sound appropriate and right in line with becoming a social business.
You see, it’s really not about the channel a complaint comes in on; it is about the type of company that you are. If you are a customer-first organization (think Zappos), you are going to respond quickly to customer complaints, no matter what channel it comes in on: e-mail, phone or social. And if you are not, you won’t. It’s that simple.
The emergence of social networks sparked a tectonic shift in human behavior and how individuals communicate with friends, acquaintances and businesses. We’ve long been talking about social media and its impact on business, we are simply at the point now that as a company you either get it or you don’t. Based on this poll, it seems like most do.
Posted by Stu Goldstein on January 4th, 2012 at 3:56 pm
It is nice to see the idea of a social telephine getting attention. The issue facing most customer facing organizations is the ownership of the customer relationship compared to who owns social media,
The battle of customer services vs. marketing or PR is still not over for most organizations. Large budgets are given to contact centers to ensure SLA’s meet customer requirements. The concept of a multi-channel customer experience is not new, and only a modest percent of retail, financial services organizations have adapted additional channel support.
The pioneers of the social telephone concept are challenged with point solutions providers for email or chat channels. CRM vendors are now including social as part of a customer service application. The Oracle acquisition of Right Now and Salesforce.com acquistion of Radian6 are a great start to an enterprise requirements. The contact center providers like Avaya and Cisco also are offering a social integration into the contact center.
Who win’s the technology war and which internal department of the organization wins ownership for the social telephone will be the trend to watch in 2012. We know we can expect more consolidation and more entrants into the marketplace.
Posted by Wim Rampen on January 4th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
We should know by now, that response times only impress for a very short while. Customers are looking to solve their issues AND they are taking the easiest path to resolution. The only good (Social) Customer Service is No Customer Service so to say.. But I guess that's only possible in utopia.
Posted by @jeremyvictor on January 5th, 2012 at 7:18 am
Stu,
Really insightful comment. As someone who used to manage consumer support centers, I know very well the balance of resolving issues and upselling combined with needing the necessary technology to do so. Adding the social layer to all of that is mind numbing to think about.
Thanks for the comment!
Jeremy
Posted by @jeremyvictor on January 5th, 2012 at 7:20 am
Wim,
That is utopia … and one I am afraid we will never see.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Jeremy
Posted by Do you answer the social telephone? | Round Rockit Media on January 6th, 2012 at 5:38 pm
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