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Social media provides customers with a direct way to connect with your company and brand but are you responding to direct messages (DMs) and post comments quickly enough? Let’s look at how customers are using social media to contact businesses and how businesses must adapt to respond.

Whether it’s questions about products and services or learning more about a company, there are several ways consumers contact businesses on social media – comments on a post, tagging the business in a post, or direct messaging. Comments posted as indirect tags or made directly on a company’s social media page are public indicators of a company’s customer service level. Before making buying decisions, consumers often research a company’s tone, attention, and response time for social media messages as a preview of how businesses address customer concerns. DMs are the most popular way consumers reach out for customer service online – 2 out of 3 consumers use DMs and 40% of consumers expect a response from a company within 1 hour.

Different social media platforms have different response expectations. For example, 55% of Instagram users who use DM have an expected response time within 3 hours. The importance of timely online customer service has become so important that Facebook places responsive badges on business pages to inform visitors of a company’s customer response rate.

The key to online customer service is prompt responses. When companies don’t answer messages quickly, a customer feels disregarded and will likely move on to a competitor. This is especially true for negative comments or DMs that contain consumer issues. Research showed that 78% of buyers say they would repurchase from a brand even after an issue as long as the customer service was good.

There are repercussions for ignoring negative comments and many companies are dropping the ball on fast response times, leaving opportunities open for competitors to fill in the gaps.

Tips to Speed Up Your Social Media Response Time

Staying on top of your online customer support is overwhelming. Here are some ways your company can ensure your social media response time reflects your commitment to customer service.

  • Consolidating the process onto a singular platform can help you view messages, tags, and comments as they arrive.
  • Creating and saving suggested replies or templates based on popular questions or comments can make things faster, smoother, and consistent no matter who is managing your social media.
  • Prioritize your responses and replies based on their importance. It’s important to place product questions and negative comments as top priorities as both have a direct impact on a customer’s decision to do business with you.
  • Set benchmarks to improve customer service workflow and average response time to ensure all concerns are addressed promptly.
  • Can’t keep up? It might be time to consider outsourcing. Outsourcing is a smart way to stay on top of customer demand without drastically affecting your company expenses or quality of service.

Responsive Call Center offers professional and timely social media direct messaging response and live chat customer service to help your business attract and retain customers. Working closely with your team will ensure all responses meet your brand standards so messages sound like they are coming from your own team members. Call us today at (855) 729-3235 to discuss the next steps to help your business respond fast enough to social media messages.