More and more businesses are using social media as a channel for their customer service processes, and it’s growing! According to a new report from Sword Ciboodle, a customer service provider, and thinkJar, a customer service consulting firm, 75% of the businesses that took part in a recent study said that they were using social media outlets in one way or another. Of those, 59% of them have adopted Twitter and 60% have adopted Facebook, and close to 85% of those businesses that use one of those sites actually use both of them.
Interestingly, it’s the larger organisations that have adopted these channels quicker. 40% of businesses with more than 1000 employees have been using social media for customer service for the past two years. 53% of those with between 100 and 500 employees have begun to use social media in the past 12 to 24 months.
Apparently 35% of smaller businesses haven’t got around to trying social media for customer service yet – suspect that they might need to start soon.
This is reinforced by the findings in the report that highlight that 71% of customers go online first whenever they have a problem with a product – don’t think this social media stuff is going away!
Hi Andy
The fact that larger companies are turning to Twitter doesn’t mean it’s the right service option for them, or the customer. I still have grave doubts as to the scalability and real engagement options that Twitter can provide. Sure, it can help communicate service outages – but can you really deliver a rich, secure, scalable service experience?
I don’t think so.
Mark