From our own Social Media Statistics Compendium…

  • 42% of leading UK companies say that customer service is the most important skill required for real-time social community engagement.

  • Of the 4.8m small businesses in the UK, nearly a quarter (23%) earn over £1,000 per annum through connecting with consumers on social platforms.
  • 49.5% of 18-24 year-olds have dealt with a brand through social media. 27.4% of 55+ age group have also dealt with a brand with social media. 

  • 31% of marketers see increases in customer engagement from the use of social media.

What motivates a Twitter user to follow a company?

  • Almost 10% of all brand mentions by a male follower are a complaint, as are 5% of brand mentions by a female follower.

Download our full social media statistics compendium for much more.

From Lithium Technologies…

  • 53% of customers who ask a brand a question on Twitter expect a response within one hour.
  • However, if a customer makes a complaint to a brand using Twitter, that figure goes up to 72%.

  • If companies don’t respond within the one hour time frame, 38% of people feel more negatively towards the brand, and an impressively galvanised 60% will take action against the brand using social media.
  • 74% of customers believe that if they take to social media to criticise a brand, this leads to better service. 
  • More than half of all Twitter users engage with brands, and that same number prefer Twitter to other traditional methods of communication when they need to contact them.

From Simply Measured… 

  • 30 of the Interbrand Top 100 Brands currently operate a dedicated customer service Twitter feed, a number that has increased from 23 since December 2012.

  • Mentions of dedicated customer service handles have increased by 44% year-over-year.
  • The average response rate to all customer service mentions was 42%, while Ford achieved the best response rate at 75%. Only five of the dedicated support accounts maintained response rates greater than 60%.
  • The top 10 dedicated handles account for a massive 59% of total customer mentions, and demand has actually increased by 20% since December 1. These accounts responded by increasing the number of tweets they sent by 39%.

Each of the top 10 brands by mentions averaged response times less than 24 hours.

From Social Bakers…

Here are 2013’s top 10 global brands with the best customer service on Facebook.

  • Brands improved their response rate by 143% on Facebook over the last year.
  • Here are the best operating industries on Facebook by response rate, from 2012 to 2013.

From Ambassador…

Finally here’s a neat infographic that sums everything up nicely. Especially compelling is the fact that if a follower receives good customer service via social media, they will spend 21% more.

For more insight, find out how these 20 top UK retailers handle social customer service.