Responding to Customers on Social Media Can Boost Satisfaction by 20%

According to a new research from INFORMS Journal Information Systems Research, better management of customer care on Twitter is responsibl...

According to a new research from INFORMS Journal Information Systems Research, better management of customer care on Twitter is responsible for a 19% increase in customer satisfaction. An increase of almost 20% is amazing for any positive business metric. But, when it is in customer satisfaction, it is that much better.

The research looked at data from Twitter service accounts among the four big telecommunications firms in the United States. It found out AT&T and Verizon had an edge against Sprint and T-Mobile when it came to customer care online.

Boost Customer Satisfaction Using Twitter

Previous research had found nearly two-thirds of customers have used a company’s social media site to connect with customer service. Thus highlighting the significant role social media plays in customer service. As such, responding to customer queries on social media can significantly improve customer sentiment as well as the appearance of service quality.

Social media allow easy customer contact and engagement with brands. They also offer social interaction, build brands and diversify contact through multiple channels.

“Good digital care consists not merely of responding to tweets, but effort-intensive activity in which customer tweets need to be carefully examined and adequately addressed,” said Vijay Mookerjee of the University of Texas at Dallas.

If an event is perceived positively by customers, it would prompt a lower expectation of quality service. Conversely, negatively perceived experience such as a price hike, would increase customers’ expectations of quality care.

The solution towards addressing negative events is for companies to tailor response efforts in anticipation of potentially influential events. You can do this through marketing campaigns or new product releases.

Research Findings

Customers also expect a better quality of care from firms that charge more money for similar cellular plans. To measure the pulse of customer care, the researchers advise designing some sort of ticket generation system that would detect the tweets that require follow up. This in return will help put in place a good customer service team capable of resolving the issues. Simply sending out automated tweets according to the researchers will not cut it.

By gathering data from Twitter and other digital platforms, businesses can capture, process, and monitor customer sentiment. Businesses can also deploy a variety of analytical tools to forecast customer sentiment over time. Particularly leading business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses to regularly monitor and respond to customers’ service-related queries in social media networks.

Yet gaps exist in understanding how customer sentiment can be managed using an optimal response strategy. This is despite the fact that businesses prioritize customers’ tweets to allocate available resources in providing responses. However, a problem arises from a lack of research on how to prescribe a response strategy to respond to particular customer sentiment.

The bottom line is that good care quality comes from carefully evaluating customer requests and responding to them in an appropriate manner.

Why You Should Listen to Our Customers

Listening to your customers is not only about finding a solution to their pain points in your services. They offer many insights that can add value to your business. After all, the customer is at the receiving end of your service. It is also the customer that decides what you offer and whether the price you ask for measure up.

By simply being the end-users, customers can break down your offerings and measure it against your competition’s offering. By listening to our customers, you can learn surprising details of your offering as well as an overall business operation.

Besides addressing customer concerns, you can also use social media to turn a neutral or negative experience into a positive one. The key here is to make sure to acknowledge your customers’ points of view even if you disagree with it. Even when receiving negative reviews use it as an opportunity to start a conversation that could result in a good resolution. This will also demonstrate to your customers that you care about quality customer experiences and are willing to listen.

As a business, the goal is to have a long terms relationship with your customers. That means they must keep on coming to buy your services. If you do not listen to their complaints and suggestions, you miss opportunities to bring in loyal customers.

The role of customer reviews is something that should never be overlooked. Especially in today’s ever-connected world, customer reviews are of paramount importance. They need to be considered by businesses to design services and inform their marketing efforts. This will ultimately help to improve loyalty by adding value to customers.

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This article, "Responding to Customers on Social Media Can Boost Satisfaction by 20%" was first published on Small Business Trends