WASHINGTON 鈥� Social media has changed the way we complain about everything from bad customer service to a late delivery or a product that didn’t live up to expectations.
Companies are listening and responding 鈥� or, at least, they should be.
A consumer survey by D.C.-based B2B research company found that most people expect a brand to respond to comments on social media within 24 hours.
Millennials, who鈥檝e grown up with social media, are even more demanding, with 44 percent expecting a social media response to their gripe within an hour.
When you post a gripe on a company鈥檚 Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account, it doesn鈥檛 just go to customer service. It goes to hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of people following that company. And that is empowering.
鈥淪ocial media has really changed the consumer/company dynamic. It has really given the consumer more power and mobility in terms of voicing these concerns and complaints,鈥� Toby Cox at Clutch told 海角精品黑料. 鈥淏ut also on the flip side, it also empowers businesses to show a more personal and humanized version of their brand.鈥�
It is in a company鈥檚 best interest to respond to social media comments quickly.
鈥淚f there is a negative comment and the company ignores it, consumers can see that and they will think that the company doesn鈥檛 really care about the experience of their consumers,鈥� Cox said.
颁濒耻迟肠丑鈥檚 survey found 45 percent of consumers said they would view a brand more positively if it responded to negative comments on social media.
鈥淏eing able to show the way that your business responds in a crisis is actually helpful because customers get reassurance that if something goes wrong, your business will take care of them,鈥� said Melina Palmer, a behavioral economist and founder of .
Responding quickly 鈥� 鈥淲e are sorry you had a bad experience鈥� 鈥� does not mean a company needs to remedy the complaint quickly.
“It’s not like we’re telling people, ‘You have to fix this immediately within a day or less or an hour or less,'” said , CEO of health care advertising agency Activate Health. “But the company’s response has to make people feel like they’ve been heard.”
颁濒耻迟肠丑鈥檚 included 532 people in the U.S. who use social media at least once per week.
