Gone are the days when we didn’t need to worry about using social media for customer support. But today, it’s not even a question. According to the Sprout Social report 90% of people surveyed have used social media in some way to communicate directly with a brand. The bad news is that brands reply to just 11% of people leaving the majority of inquiries ignored. It means that most businesses continue to use social media as a promotional marketing tool instead of a two-way customer communication channel.
In fact social media has already become the preferred customer service channel for millennials, and it is growing in popularity for older groups too. What’s more, whenever people turn to social for customer support, they want a response much faster than most organizations are either willing or able to provide. The same survey found that the average time it takes brands to respond to a social media message is 10 hours, though most people consider under 4 hours reasonable.