Jay Baer posted an article on how 70% of companies don't response to complaints on Twitter. That's a high number of companies that ignore customer complaints on social media. What this suggests to me is that companies tend to make social media a low priority, or they don't know how to respond and are afraid of backlash.
The reason I think companies treat social media as a low priority, is that even now they still don't "get" social media and how it applies to their business. They don't recognize that social media is more than just having a Facebook page that you rarely visit. It's part of how you market your business, part of how you network, and part of how you provide customer service. In short social media is a social interaction with people.
More than ever people have expectations that companies will be on social media. Yet companies that refuse to engage people are confirming that they don't care about their customers, or rather they are allowing that perception of not caring to proliferate because of their lack of engagement.
While social media isn't the only medium that businesses can engage customers, it is becoming a more and more popular medium that businesses need to keep track of. If people are having conversations about the business and the business isn't there to chime in and represent its own interests, then the business is allowing those people to shape the conversation about its brand and culture. Needless to say that isn't an ideal situation for the business.
A business needs to recognize that while social media is a public venue, its also a space where the business can represent it. The business can share information about services and products, but also about employees, funny situations, life, etc. In other words the business can represent the human aspects of it. People find it much easier to relate to the business if they know that actual people will address their concerns.
So if your business isn't on social media or isn't actively engaging people on social media, ask why it isn't and then start developing a plan of action that will allow you to leverage this medium to your benefit, while helping you develop better relationships with clients.