Bold statement - and I definitely share some sympathy with the respondents of a "conversocial study" online questionnaire to assess the state of customer satisfaction with corporate social media sites.
The study was completed by 513 respondents, focusing on 9 questions asked. For this exclusive article I picked two of these questions out, which will show what is going on in corporate social media departments (if there is one) and how businesses are struggling to keep up just with answering questions or complaints by consumers filling the comments or inbox on Facebook.
The participants were asked, "Based on your experience, how would you rank your overall satisfaction with the way companies do business on social networking sites?" - One third of the respondents did not hold back in verbalizing their dissatisfaction in how they feel they were treated.
With answers like: "Very poor (7.8%) - You never get what you need when you need it - I don't know why they even bother being on Facebook" and "Poor (24.6%) - It's very spotty - Sometimes you get what you need, sometimes you don't" - the indication of "not a happy camper here" is painting a very clear picture.
59.6% responded, "Good experience - with room for improvement, and companies starting to get the hang of it" - and 8% considering their experience as "Great - with smooth and effective way of communicating with companies"
Let's get ready for the more important question, which I consider a nasty but classy upper cut. [Please hold on when you read this, and you may want to make sure somebody will catch you when swaying in the social media arena, almost borderline unconscious and avoiding hitting the ground - hard!]
One out of Two (49.5%) will be "far less likely buy anything from that company", where the consumer has gone to the company's Facebook page prior to shopping, and seen posted a series of unanswered questions or complaints from customers. As the case description continues -"If I ever needed customer care, I'd likely be ignored as well".
Powww - what a hit. That hurts! Here comes round two, with a nicely placed jab to your chin - with 38.8% still having the opinion that "I'd be somewhat less likely to buy anything from that company. Ignoring customers is a bad sign, but I'm having other considerations" and just 11.7% "wouldn't care at all."
We are talking about Nine of Ten respondents being on their way out and maybe never doing business with you again.
My advice for possible "guilty as charged" businesses and their behaviors on the social media front:
- Have one dedicated person in charge for answering questions, or in case you are having a larger operation, please make sure you will install a team handling these requests
- Give the "response" team the leverage to answer question to their best knowledge, and the freedom to contact other employees of the business in case specific questions and to offer concrete answers, like software update available for products purchased prior, development of new goods, etc
- Be timely with your responses. In case you do not have the business structure supporting a single "reputation and monitoring" person fully dedicated for this process, make sure to have the "one" employee in charge for this matter check at least 4 times a day your comments and inbox on Facebook. As part of the conversocial research found - more than 68% of consumers want to have their questions and complaints answered promptly!
- With increasing negative reviews all over the net and sites like Yelp, Merchant Circle, Google Places, Foursquare and more you might want to consider to look into a reputable company offering "monitoring service" if, how and when somebody dropped a note somewhere in the web-sphere
- In case you are handling a complaint found on your social media presence, do not take on the consumer with the purpose to "fight for your rights" and get into a pissing match. Offer always in calmly manner a direct phone number to you and the approach "YOU" want to take care of the issue. When the issue is resolved (which happens in my experience around 8 out of 10 times), repost your success and solution of the issue right back onto the thread. With this demonstrated transparency follow readers of your fan page will see you are indeed customer oriented. DO NOT TAKE THE DISCUSSION AND RESOLUTION COMPLETELY OFFLINE!
In case you have more tips and tricks or experience on "what has worked for you" to diminish the hurt, when receiving open complaints and issues on your Social Media channels, I would love to hear back from you.
Until next time...happy socializing!