Social media isn’t just fun and games, its popularity has soared and people of all ages are going online to find information, read reviews and communicate with businesses. Having a positive brand reputation is more crucial than ever in the this online environment, because according to Ofcom 25% of people claim that they trust consumer reviews over the reviews of journalists and critics.

Many businesses fall into the trap of putting too much emphasis on content production and plough their budget into creating innovative campaigns instead of focusing on customer service.

Failing to nurture the customer element of social media is a big mistake, and while it’s still crucial that businesses are sending out interesting content to attract consumers, it is equally important that brands spend enough time appeasing their audience by replying to their queries and complaints.

In an ideal world, a company should be dividing their social media time into around 20% creating unique content and the other 80% engaging with their customers. Is your business doing enough to engage with consumers online?

Are face-to-face complaints a thing of the past?

It is predicted that online shopping sales will reach £52.25 billion in 2015 in the UK alone, according to research by the Centre for Retail Research and RetailMeNot. They also found that in-store sales were estimated to drop by 1.4% in 2015 compared to an 18.4% rise in online sales.

"First Direct, Lush and John Lewis were the top companies for customer service in 2014"

With such a huge proportion of businesses thriving online, it is only natural that a greater number of adults are taking their complaints out of the stores and turning to online platforms. Research by Gnatta, found that 38% of consumers preferred to make a complaint over email, while a further 33% of people would voice their complaint via social media.

Although 25% of people still opted to make a complaint over the phone, in a hectic world where people barely have time to visit a shop, social media could be a fast and efficient way for consumers to make their voice heard.

Surprisingly, our research revealed that people aged 35-44 were the most likely to make a complaint over social media. What’s more, the survey revealed that 1 in 10 over 65s also used online social channels as a way to complain to businesses.

This may come as a shock to some businesses that believe that social media users are a predominantly young audience. This calls for brands to put more consideration into the way that they interact with customers on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

24/7 access

Gone are the days where people would have to visit a shop and wait for the manager to address their complaint. The online landscape means that businesses are always accessible to consumers, day or night.

According to Gnatta’s research, over 50% of consumers would only wait 24 hours for their complaint to be answered before contacting the business again, while 27% would only wait 2-3 hours and 14% of consumers would sit on their complaint for an hour before speaking to the company again.

According to Smartinsights.com, 80% of people now access the internet via a smartphone. With this in mind, the need for quick responses is even more important than before, as people can reach into their pockets and have access to your business from wherever they might be.

This is how your customers want to talk to you today

Answering customer complaints and queries is a time-consuming job. Despite being online, the responses still require the same level of attention that customers would expect to receive face-to-face.

Reading about a problem is often more difficult than hearing it explained, and therefore crafting personal and empathetic responses to customer complaints may take longer than your average reply, especially if the issue does not directly involve whoever is dealing with it.

Often, the social media manager of large organisations can feel the wrath of a customer who has a complaint which has nothing to do with their side of the business. This may make it difficult to provide a genuine response, especially if their time is stretched as it is.

According to the Telegraph, First Direct, Lush and John Lewis were the top companies for customer service in 2014. It is no secret that brands that perform well for customer service work hard to make their customers feel appreciated, by providing personalised communications and quick responses.

Is outsourcing the key to good customer comms?

Instead of handling customer service processes in-house, many businesses are outsourcing this responsibility to other companies or using innovative software to deal with the responses directly.

We all know that customer complaints don’t just roll into one single platform - if a business utilises different social channels, they will need to have constant access to every platform and be able to respond with impeccable timing.

There is software available that gathers customer communications all in one place, so businesses can log into one account and easily view all interactions from social media and email. Not only does this save businesses time, it also allows the creatives to concentrate on delivering social media campaigns, rather than addressing complaints every time they access social media.