ARE YOU
FAILING?
When it comes to social customer care, 92.5%
of companies are failing, according to a study
by Rational Interaction. Failing as in a big F! And
you can’t grade customer service on a curve,
says American customer service and experience
expert Shep Hyken.
www.foodtechnology.co.nz 17
It’s either good or it isn’t. It’s either
stellar or mediocre, or even downright
bad. Either you’re making your
customer happy, or you’re not.
Rational Interaction collected data
by analysing 76 brands across retail,
healthcare and technology industries. It
tracked activity over a seven-day period,
using a 10% sample size of the collected
data. As I read through the report, this is
what came to mind:
There are about 310 million
active Twitter users
These users send out more than 500
million tweets each day.
• Of those users, 67% have reached out
to a brand to get help or service. That’s
almost 208 million people who have
complained or asked for help on Twitter
• 53% of these people (customers) expect
a response within 60 minutes.
Here is what blows my mind…58% of the
customers reaching out to the brands they
do business with don’t get a response.
Are you kidding me?
I recently noticed that a friend of mine
complained on Twitter. I remember
thinking, “This will be interesting.” Why?
My friend, fellow customer service expert
Jay Baer - author of Hug Your Haters
- says, “Social customer service is a
spectator sport.” I remember waiting for
the social conversation between my friend
and the company to begin. I waited and
waited. It took hours for the company to
get back to my buddy.
The implications from the report – as in
the failing companies – are big. Thirty-eight
percent of people will have a negative
perception about a brand that doesn’t
respond and 60% will tweet about their
negative experiences. It used to be that
the average complaining customer might
tell eight to 12 people about a negative
experience. That was before social media.
Now it’s everyone they are connected
with, and then others who their friends
and followers are connected with, and on
down the line.
You may or may not be familiar with Dave
Carroll. He is a musician. His guitar was
damaged on a United Airlines flight. He
submitted a claim to have it repaired,
but United denied the claim. He pleaded
with them, and when he didn’t get the
response he wanted, he did what any
good, creative songwriter would do. He
wrote a song about the experience. He
titled it United Breaks Guitars and posted
it on YouTube. This was his version of
tweeting about the complaint or posting
it on Facebook. The result is that more
than 16 million people have viewed this
complaint!
With Rational Interaction’s stats and facts
in hand, how can you afford not to take
a closer look at social media customer
service?
Here are six ideas on how
to deliver amazing service
through social media:
1. If you haven’t started a social customer
care programme, then start. It’s not too
late.
2. If you’re wondering about which
channels you should monitor, it’s
not that hard to decide. Be where
your customers are. Wherever your
customers are posting, that’s where
you need to have a presence.
3. Respond quickly. Response time
is huge. You can see from the
statistics cited earlier in this article
that customers expect a fairly quick
response when they post socially.
A study by Eptica showed that the
average response time from brands
on Twitter was seven hours and 12
minutes. That said, get an idea of how
well some of the top retail brands
respond.
4. Consider a separate ‘brand handle’ to
support your customers. For example,
on Twitter, Nike’s brand handle is @
Nike, but in addition, they have created
another handle to manage customer
service, which is @NikeSupport.
5. Your initial response to a complaint
should be a public response. Let the
world know you responded quickly and
you care. Then take the conversation
to a private forum. Once the situation
is resolved, go back to the original post
and leave a comment, thanking the
customer for the opportunity to fix the
problem.
6. Respond to every post or comment
from a customer, not just complaints.
Social customer care should include
discussion about general comments as
well. Engage with your community at
every opportunity, good and bad. More
engagement is always good.
Shep Hyken is a keynote speaker and
bestselling author. Follow him on
Twitter: @Hyken.
This was his
version of
tweeting
about the
complaint or
posting it on
Facebook. The
result is that
more than
16 million
people have
viewed this
complaint!
/www.foodtechnology.co.nz
