Retail sector slow to enhance customer service through social media
Published: 17 January, 2011
Less than half of all organisations in the retail sector are using social media platforms to engage with customers, according to KenCall. The study found that only 42 per cent of retail companies were using social media to interact with customers, with 7 per cent engaging in communication via Facebook, and only 32 per cent using Twitter as a customer service tool.
The research found that 57 per cent of all companies researched have a branded Twitter account, only 41 per cent of these are using it to engage on a one-to-one basis with customers. A quarter of all companies are using Twitter merely for outbound communication, and choose not to monitor replies.
Nik Nesbitt, KenCall’s CEO said: “The research shows that the retail sector has not been embracing social media tools as much as some others in industry. For instance, 91 per cent of organisations in the telecommunications industry were found to be engaging in two-way communications through social media platforms, which means there is certainly room for improvement.
“Organisations need to need to understand that by failing to embrace the social media tools their customers and prospects are using, they are missing out on an opportunity to provide better, more fully integrated customer service. By ignoring these channels, they are ignoring their customers and so opening themselves up to reputation damage.”
“I can understand that some organisations see social media as time consuming and unnecessary, but this study illustrates the fact that many organisations are jumping onto the social media bandwagon, without fully understanding the benefits they can achieve by doing it properly. We believe that social media should be an invaluable customer service tool for businesses all over the world.”
Organisations were scored on their effectiveness of use of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, company blogs and other bespoke social networks.
