Consumers are taking to Twitter to voice their complaints – and they’re expecting speedy customer service.
Research from Lithium Technologies found that 78% of people who complain to a brand over Twitter expect a response within one hour.
And if they don’t get a quick response? If these Twitter users didn’t get the support they expected, the results aren’t very positive for the company.
- 29% of respondents would tell their friends and family about the experience.
- 26% would escalate their concern through other sources of communication.
- 24% would consider buying less from that company in the future.
- 21% wouldn’t recommend the company’s products/services.
- 15% would complain about (or shame) the company/brand in social media.
The take away: You need to be engaged with your Twitter followers, even if that means addressing complaints. Here are a few tips:
Be speedy.
Try to respond within an hour. You don’t need to solve the problem within an hour, but at least acknowledge you’ve seen the complaint. Your customer will feel better knowing someone’s considering their complaint.
Acknowledge mistakes.
If a mistake was made, apologize (genuinely.) Recognize that your customer is upset about something and wants to be heard.
Go offline.
While you may have received the initial complaint on social media, sometimes it’s best to do the bulk of the follow up offline. See if you can email, phone or meet with the customer so you don’t have fit your response in to 140 characters. Your customers will appreciate the one-on-one attention and you can keep your social media feed clean.
Learn from it.
Don’t take complaints personally but do evaluate what’s being said. Do you need to change policies or procedures? Do you need to create a response plan?
Do you need help managing your Twitter account or responding to complaints? FrontSide offers social media management for small businesses like yours. Check it out here.