A survey found that more than 1 million people per week view Tweets related to customer service experiences with a variety of service providers and that more than 80 percent of those Tweets reflect a critical or negative customer experience. TOA Technologies, the only on-demand provider of enterprise-class mobile worksforce management software solutions disclosed the results of its study on customer behavior and the use of Twitter in customer service.
Perhaps the most surprising finding was that just one person making negative comments about a company on Twitter may have bottom line consequences. And, as an online reputation expert recently said at a TechMedia digital conference, “If they’re not Tweeting about you yet, they will be.”
According to the study’s findings, customers who have a negative customer service experience, and who broadcast that message via Twitter to their followers, have a broader impact on brand equity than ever before. As Twitter continues to grow dramatically, the reach and influence of these Tweets will continue to expand at an exponential pace due to the network affect.
This means that cable companies, and other service providers who have regular interactions with customers, need to refine their customer service strategies to reflect the growing power of consumers’ voices, by not only incorporating social media channels, but also providing new solutions to alleviate frustrated customers’ complaints.
“It may not be a big surprise that people Tweet when they are unhappy about customer service – but what is astonishing is the expansive network effect of these Tweets,” said Yuval Brisker, CEO of TOA Technologies.
“Based on our study’s findings that most customers’ Tweets about service providers reflect a negative experience, a key goal of every service-based company should be to keep their name off of Twitter. As cable companies begin to focus more on customer service differentiation, they need to not only refine their social media strategy, but also focus on innovative preventative solutions for the problems that cause these Tweets. Software solutions that aim to predictively engage customers before problems arise, and provide real-time solutions in advance, are obtaining the best results.”
The statistical sampling of more than 2,000 Tweets was collected during the period of February 25 to May 2, 2011 and focused on terms that included “the Cable Guy” and “installation appointments,” among other terms.
One dissatisfied customer can potentially impact the bottom line
TOA’s study found that during the selected time period, 82 percent of the surveyed Tweets contained negative (or somewhat negative) sentiments about customers’ cable appointment experience – with these Tweets reaching more than 780,000 additional followers at the first level (TOA did not calculate the effect of re-Tweets). Twitter users post an average of 50 million Tweets per day, so one unsatisfied customer has the potential to negatively impact the bottom line of any service provider by Tweeting about one bad experience.
The survey also found that, while the average appointment window for the cable carriers analyzed was four hours, some customers related waiting times on service windows of over 20 hours.
Tweets ranged from sarcastic, “If I was a cable Guy I’d call into work like one too, ‘I’m be late today…I’ll be in sometime between 8-1,’” to resigned, “Now begins the vigil of waiting for the cable guy in an unreasonably wide window of time. Sigh,” to frustrated, “Day 2 in the apartment: waiting for the cable guy. Let’s see if he really comes.”
As with many of these surveys, TOA has a dog in this hunt. It says it can help solve some of these customer service problems.
Service providers are regularly targeted on social media channels and many have created Twitter accounts in order to address customer service issues. TOA Technologies, the company says, improves the relationship between companies and their customers by providing predictive updates about the status of service appointments in real-time, using its cloud-based mobile workforce management platform.
These updates proactively update customers about their technician or delivery person’s time of arrival, and also give customer service teams the information needed to use Twitter proactively, as a preventive tool, in advance of potential issues.
TOA Technologies is a provider of on-demand mobile workforce management applications for large and medium-sized enterprises. ETAdirect, TOA’s patented platform, the company says, improves customer service while dramatically reducing operational costs and delivering immediate return on investment. toatech.com.
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Tags: cable companies, customer service on Twitter, handling negative tweets, mobile workforce management software, responding to negative tweets, TOA, tweets about companies, twitter, Yuval Brisker
