Let’s say you go to a store and you have a bad experience and after this, you want to let the company’s customer service department know. What do you do? The main options for awhile have been call, write a letter, or email. If you chose to do one of these options, then you could expect a wait time of a couple minutes of listening to elevator music on the short side, or a couple of weeks at the most. However, consumers are using social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook, more and more for contacting customer support. And just how long can you expect to wait on these sites? According to a consumer study, not very long at all!
According to the survey done by the Social Habit of customers who have tried to contact a company for customer support via social media, a response within 30 mins is expected by 32% of people, and 42% of people expect it within 60 minutes! Additionally, it doesn’t seem to matter what time of day a response is expected. According to the survey, “among those respondents who have ever attempted to contact a brand, product, or company through social media for customer support, 57% expect the same response time at night and on weekends as during normal business hours.”
With these expectations by consumers, it’s important if you manage a brand or company online, that you can respond to your customer’s in a timely manner.