After browsing through The Drum recently, I was absolutely astonished to come across this statistic:
71% of companies are still ignoring consumer complaints on Twitter
I mean, come on, these are your customers. Just because they choose Twitter a their form of communication as opposed to a phone call, doesn’t make their complain any less important.
Plus, if it’s out on Twitter, potentially thousands of people can also see their complaint. So doesn’t make sense to do something about it rather than ignore it?
According to the article, only 29% of those who tweeted a company with a complaint received a reply (Maritz Research) and the goes on to say:
The American research looked at 1,298 consumers over the age of 18 who frequently tweet and have used the micro-blogging site to complain about a specific product, service, brand or company.
- 49% of respondents had expected the company to read their tweet
- 64.9% of older tweeters (aged 55+) expected a reply
- 38.4% of younger tweeters (18-24 year olds) expected a reply
Of those who received a response from a company, 34.7% were very satisfied and 39.7% were somewhat satisfied with the response.While 86.4% said they would love/like it if the company had got back to them regarding their specific complaint, 63.3% said that they wouldn’t like or would hate it if the company contacted them about something other than their complaint.
Tweets of power
In the olden days, if a customer was unhappy, they’d either phone, write or turn up in person.
Now, they can vent their anger online for all to see – your opportunity to turn a bad situation into great PR by being seen as a company that cares, a company that wants to please its customers and who puts them at the top of their priorities. Of course, that’s only if you take action. If you ignore them you could do irreparable damage to your company’s name.
Just by listening to your followers could greatly improve your customer satisfaction levels, in fact the report states that 84% of people liked it when companies responded to their tweet.
Monitoring your tweets effectively
Your Twitter account must be monitored every day. That way, if someone complains (or gives you a compliment) you can act quickly and responsively.
By:
- Monitoring Twitter for any mention of your company name
- Responding quickly to tweets received from your customers
- Never getting into a Twitter argument
- Making a quick response to turn a bad situation into a positive one
You can avoid being one of the 71%.
Over to you
If your business uses Twitter, share your ideas on how to use it effectively by leaving a comment below.