On average, consumers will share a positive experience with roughly 15 people. When consumers encounter bad customer service experiences, however, they tell about 24 people.

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter increase the impact of customer service complaints, especially when you consider each of those 24 people can easily spread the word among their own friends and fans.

All things considered, one would expect businesses and brands to recognize and address the need for a social customer service strategy, but surprisingly the state of social customer care remains fairly unimpressive and downright dismal in some cases.

  1. It costs 5x as much to attract new customers as it does to retain existing customers.
    Each social customer service interaction is an opportunity to keep your existing customers. If you’re failing at social customer care, your competitor is only a mouse click or finger tap away.
  2. Approximately 90% of customers check a business’ website to resolve a customer service issue before calling.
    More and more consumers are seeking to resolve customer service issues online and through social media outlets. If you’re not listening and don’t have an effective social customer care strategy in place, you will lose business.
  3. Bad customer service costs business about $83 billion annually.
    Translation: if you treat your customers like crap, they will cease doing business with you.
  4. While 80% of businesses believe they deliver superior customer service, only 8% of consumers agree that they’ve received such service.
    Your customer service isn’t as good as you think, and you need to consider the customer’s perspective in your social “customer service” strategy.
  5. Nearly 90% of consumers aren’t likely to return to a business that fails to respond to any posted customer complaints.
    Around 20% of businesses simply don’t respond to social media customer service inquiries, which is shocking considering the aforementioned fact. Be attentive and respond to your customer complaints on social media.
  6. As Micah Solomon, a customer service author, speaker, and customer experience consultant, points out:

    Looking at things the way a customer looks at them, sharing the customer experience any way you can, is crucial to providing even a baseline level of customer service.

    To share your own customer service complaints, raise awareness of poor customer service, and work to resolve customer service issues, sign up and post your customer service issues with Comnio.