Could Social Customer Service Just Be A Fad?

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All major social platforms have been working on ways to facilitate communication between businesses and customers and the ability to conduct customer service. Obvious examples are Facebook’s support to customer service messages through its Messenger app, or Twitter’s recent rollout of new features to foster customer care and feedback.

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As ‘Care’ (capital C) becomes a social currency, and two of the leading social networks getting serious about social customer service, one would think that it’s driving consumers to choose social media to address their complaints, right? Well, apparently, this is not actually the case. Not at all.

ALSO READ: 5 Obstacles To Great Customer Service On Social Media

A study carried out by the Boston Consulting Group and Nice Systems found that consumers actually prefer traditional customer service channels. Out of all survey repondents, 65% have never taken to social media to address their issue, with a third of them indicating that it takes too long for the complaint to be resolved.

Number two in the reasons social media isn’t suitable for customer service is the limited functionality that social networks offer. Of course this might change soon, with the introduction of new features. As the results below show however, the list of motives is pretty long, and dissatisfaction is perhaps surprisingly high: 6 of the proposed 7 reasons for not going through social media for customer service have been approved by at least 24% of respondents.

When it comes to social customer care, this other study by Contact Solution indicates that speed is key. The faster the problem is fixed, the better. As a result, it makes total sense to see that the telephone still tops the preferred medium for customer service. A quick call (hopefully) many times ends up in a positive outcome, in a matter of minutes.

These two studies go somewhat against the tide as we have seen companies do very well with social customer service. KLM, for example has achieved great success with social customer service, turning it into a competitive edge and forcing other players in the market to meet their level.

Since we read about mixed experiences, we would love to hear from you! Have you implemented a social customer service? How did it work? Do you think social customer care has been over-hyped?

65% of people have never used social media for customer service. Have you?

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