The Newest Trend in Digital Marketing: Social Media Customer Care

It’s 2018, and a new segment of social media marketing is taking precedence in online business strategies: Social Media Customer Care (SMCC). SMCC is the business of providing customer service via social media platforms. Traditionally, brands used toll-free numbers, emailing and even live web chat to service their customers’ complaints and inquiries. But modern businesses are quickly realizing how much social media has changed the way we do business, or rather, the way our customers seek to do business with us.

You Need to Meet Your Customers Where They Are

websitebuilder.org.uk tells us that 90% of social media users have used social media to communicate with a brand, or at least tried to. To get a better idea of how much of your customers are online, get this: for every 10 people in the U.S., 7 of them are on social media. 79% of all adult internet users (in the entire world) are just on Facebook. Unfortunately, 95% of all customer complaints or information requests placed on social media never actually reach the companies they’re supposed to.

The modern customer is internet savvy, and it’s rare to find one that isn’t. Of all global consumers, 56% not only expect your business to be available for CS on social media, but they have high expectations. For example, 42% of customers who complain to a company on social media expect a response within the hour of their post. 32% of them expect a response within 30 minutes, but 11% of them expect a response immediately. Disappointingly, most companies average a response time of 5 whole hours. This matters, because when customers don’t get a response in time, 30% will go to a competitor brand immediately and 29% of them will get on social media to complain about your brand’s support, effectively warning other customers to stay away.

As you can see, SMCC isn’t as much of a luxury service that you can choose to avoid, especially if you want to keep your customers loyal and happy. For more interesting insights on SMCC, check out this post by Website Builder.

Infographic URL: https://websitebuilder.org.uk/blog/rise-social-media-customer-care/