CorpComms Magazine

Consumers are increasingly turning to social media for their customer service requirements, and those who perform badly on these platforms risk losing their customers altogether, according to a study by customer service software provider Conversocial.

More than half of the respondents use social media to communicate with businesses, while 78 per cent believe social media will replace other customer service channels in the foreseeable future.

Almost a third of consumers who had communicated with a brand via social media had been ignored altogether. Almost half of those surveyed said that they would feel angry if this happened to them, while more than a quarter would stop doing business with them.

Almost one third of customers rated their overall satisfaction with the way businesses manage their social media accounts to communicate with their customers as either poor or very poor.

Conversocial found that consumers want brands' social media accounts to offer both discounts and news and to function as a channel to communicate and deal with complaints.

The report said: 'The conversations a company has with its customers in social media represent its brand, in a space where real purchasing decisions are being played out. The results of this survey reveal that ignoring complaints and questions has a strong impact on these decisions, and shows that those companies failing to keep up will suffer financially.'

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