According to research done by SAP, Social Media Today, and Pivot Conference, businesses aren’t putting their “money where their mouth is” when it comes to allocating resources to social media customer service.
Yes, businesses are enthusiastic about social. Seventy-one percent of businesses surveyed integrate Social Media with customer service, and 87.5% of these saw a positive impact after integrating social. Businesses recognize that social media adds value to the customer service process.
However, businesses don’t match their enthusiasm by investing appropriate resources and time into their social plan. The study found that of these businesses, the vast majority invested less than $50k of resources in social media customer support. That’s hardly enough to hire one entry level professional. Even worse, the survey revealed significant organizational and efficiency issues. For one, 40% of them don’t have any formal process for dealing with service issues – they respond to customers on an ad-hoc basis. And secondly, service representatives are commonly delayed from responding to customers because they’re busy finding the right answer, waiting for guidance on how to answer, or finding the appropriate message to respond. I think it’s fair to infer that these two issues originate from companies failing to develop a framework around social media customer service.
Tailoring a social media triage and training employees in how to engage with customers will help eliminate these inefficiencies, boost professionalism, and maximize the benefit to your customers and to your brand. Frustrated or confused customers aren’t looking for a quick response if it fails to resolve their complaints.