Brand Quality Face-Off: Social Customer Service [Infographic]

Everyone is talking about social media being the new and ultimate way for brands to handle their customer service. It is supposedly the fastest and most optimized way for customers and brands to connect. Is that true? Well, by the looks of the data presented today, the reality is slightly different than the one we are lead to believe. By all means social media a great and fast way to connect, we all know that. But when it comes to connecting customers with brand support and customer service, there are a few more factors that are weaved into the whole endeavor. In many ways, the speed of a brand’s customer service has become synonymous with brand quality. The question is, how many brands would pass the social customer service test?

There are quite a few brands out there that brag about being the leader of the pack when it comes to social customer service. Some of them truly deserve that title as well, but there are a few that don’t quite live up to their claim. For them, their brand quality could possibly be in for a bit of a nudge.

Customers are becoming increasingly aware of their own power as a customer. It’s something that has pushed brands into a peculiar situation. In order to meet the speedy demands of a swift and resourceful customer support experience, brands have had to think up new ways to serve the ones who feed them. A simple reply on a social media inquiry could seem like an easy task, but when it comes to the larger brands, this is not always something that is easily maintained.

Imagine having hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of followers on Twitter for example. Trying to answer several thousands of customer complaints, questions and inquiries each day is virtually impossible. Are companies aware of the brand quality message they send if they fall down in their performance? Usually big brands think their position as a multinational corporation is enough to budge the customers. But today a customer almost has superior powers thanks to social media. A simple message, if written well, can reach millions and millions of people, which of course could damage any brand quality the brand has built up.

What brands need to understand is that today it’s the customers who have the upper hand. That is thanks to social networking, and its incredible possibilities when used right. This new metric dubbed brand quality has been put to the test in a new study to measure the responsiveness of big brands on Twitter. The data collected from this study was compiled into an infographic presented by CSI: Customer Service Investigator. It is called The Great Social Customer Service Race, and it is a great presentation of how we could measure brand quality in the future.

By sending 280 tweets over 26 days to each of the companies included in this study, they could measure exactly how good these companies’ brand quality really is when it comes to social customer service. There’s no doubt some brands have to take a look at how they are performing. In some cases, it’s downright lousy. Have a look for yourself and see if your experience with any of these brands matches your own brand quality measurement. Social customer service is getting ever more important, that’s for sure. However, some brands just don’t seem to be able to handle it yet. Let’s hear it from you! Share your social customer service experiences with us, and what brand quality measurement you would give the company you have been trying to get in touch with!

Brand Quality – Social Customer Service Study