{"id":1085,"date":"2014-10-17T07:17:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-17T07:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/dynamics-365\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/social-customer-service-isn-39-t-going-anywhere\/"},"modified":"2023-05-31T15:16:26","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T22:16:26","slug":"social-customer-service-isn-39-t-going-anywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/dynamics-365\/blog\/business-leader\/2014\/10\/17\/social-customer-service-isn-39-t-going-anywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Customer Service Isn’t Going Anywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been quite a bit of talk lately that social customer service isn\u2019t going anywhere, and that some brands are beginning to phase out or give up on social monitoring and response, especially around\u00a0customer care<\/a>. In a new\u00a02014 Social Media Marketing University study<\/a>, when asked about the amount of time it takes to reply to customer complaints on social media, 21% of the marketing professionals surveyed responded that they rarely or never respond to social customer complaints.<\/p>\n

Another Socialbakers\u00a0social media survey<\/a>\u00a0across 82\u00a0countries and 20\u00a0industries asked marketers what social media goals were \u201cvery important to them\u201d in 2014; 62% of the marketing professionals surveyed said customer acquisitions via social media was \u201cvery important,\u201d while only 29% said the same about social customer care.<\/p>\n

Build It and They Will Come<\/strong><\/p>\n

While marketing teams that typically own social media are just being honest in the surveys above that they would love to be able to use social media to promote to consumers without having them actually talk back or ask questions, this just isn\u2019t going to happen in 2014. You can\u2019t shut down the oncoming lanes of a superhighway that millions now use every day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Forrester has deemed this the\u00a0<\/span>Age of the Customer. This is also the year\u00a0<\/span>Gartner predicted<\/a>\u00a0that refusing to communicate with customers via social media would be as harmful as ignoring emails or phone calls. They were right, as ignoring a single customer\u2019s post or tweet can quickly draw a crowd or create a PR nightmare that many brands have learned the\u00a0<\/span>hard way<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ignoring customers on a major communication channel also goes against the biggest trends and best practices that separate today\u2019s business leaders from the laggards, including supporting customers on the channel of their convenience, digital transformation, and focusing on\u00a0<\/span>customer-centricity<\/a>\u00a0across every department. And hey, it is called\u00a0<\/span>social\u00a0<\/em>media.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ignore Them, But They Won\u2019t Go Away<\/strong><\/p>\n

Social customers and consumers are not going away, and if fact, they\u2019re becoming more and more involved with using social media as a customer service, feedback, brand conversation and advocacy tool. Before considering shutting down a lane that consumers see as a two-way street, consider these statistics:<\/span><\/p>\n