More and more businesses are using social media as a channel for their customer service processes, and it's growing! According to a new report from Sword Ciboodle, a customer service provider, and thinkJar, a customer service consulting firm, 75% of the businesses that took part in a recent study said that they were using social media outlets in one way or another. Of those, 59% of them have adopted Twitter and 60% have adopted Facebook, and close to 85% of those businesses that use one of those sites actually use both of them.
Interestingly, it's the larger organisations that have adopted these channels quicker. 40% of businesses with more than 1000 employees have been using social media for customer service for the past two years. 53% of those with between 100 and 500 employees have begun to use social media in the past 12 to 24 months.
Apparently 35% of smaller businesses haven't got around to trying social media for customer service yet - suspect that they might need to start soon.
This is reinforced by the findings in the report that highlight that 71% of customers go online first whenever they have a problem with a product - don't think this social media stuff is going away!