Customer service in social networking is no longer an option. Twitter and Facebook have become a medium to which customers approach to connect with brands; He is hoping to be heard.

The Sprout Social Index reflects a considerable increase in the number of registered consumers in social networks over the previous year requests. Thus, brands have received up to 175% more inquiries from customers on Facebook and Twitter. However, far from improving, the response times expand increasingly. On average, brands need to have spent 10.9 hours to 11.3 today, to meet in the first instance to their clients. A term that is totally unacceptable, especially in an environment characterized by the suddenness and transmission of information in real time.

But the situation is even more delicate because brands are not able to respond to all applications received, not even most of them. Thus, 80% of customers remains unanswered, with the consequent frustration and loss of confidence in the brand.

As expected, companies with more followers are those who care the least number of requests. Instead, the positive note that emerges from Sprout Social data is that at least take less time to respond. According to their study, those brands that have more than 10,000 followers take half 5.7 hours to respond, although your response rate is only 7%. Meanwhile, brands with 1,000 followers needed to have 1.7 hours to issue a response, and managed to meet 18% of requests. The study also shows that the response rate was slightly lower than Facebook which was registered through Twitter; a difference that has become more pronounced after the first quarter. Also, the response time of the requests issued through Facebook doubled to requests addressed on Twitter (15 hours vs 7.9).

The Sprout Social Index was made based on the analysis of 160 million messages received by 20,000 corporate accounts, from 15 different sectors.

This is not the only study that confirms the ineffectiveness of the marks when serving customers. Zendesk global report also shows that companies still take too long to respond, especially if customers try to contact them in the afternoon, or after hours. Your details how the customer is still not a priority for brands. A reality that directly affects the rate of customer satisfaction, and thereby your bottom line. The most committed customers with the brand spend between 20% and 40%. Therefore, the customer service can be a profitable option for many companies. It all depends on its ability to develop an effective customer strategy.