As social media’s presence in our lives shows no signs of slowing (despite some platforms reaching a saturation point with actual numbers of users), one of the key elements that has changed over the last few years is the expected response time to complaints or requests
With larger brands in 2014 this translated into 879 million complaints through social media with over 87% of these only being answered after 72 hours.
Complaints through social media should be treated with the same level of importance as face to face customer complaints. Bear in mind that because it’s social media if you are not responding quickly to a customer’s complaint or request this gives them time to share their complaint to other users and your competitors.
If you are regularly engaging customers though social media make sure someone is there to pick up on any complaints or requests as soon as they are coming through and respond to them. Obviously this requires someone getting notifications as soon as they are being sent to you.
Just a quick response to let a customer know you are about to address their problem will make the customer feel valued and empowered and less likely to spread the word to other potential customers or clients.