A recent study from Amdocs found social media to be an emerging channel of preference for consumers seeking customer-care assistance. Customers want to be helped through Twitter and Facebook, but they expect quick, personalized responses. Frankly, businesses aren’t delivering.

The study was based on a survey of service providers’ customer care readiness on social media conducted by Ovum and another survey conducted by Coleman Parkes looking at consumer attitudes towards social media as a customer-care channel.

According to the study, 68% of service providers believe their customers take to social channels like Twitter and Facebook when they’re unable to reach a customer support person on the phone. 50% of consumers, however, actually prefer social media over the phone.

50% of customers have tried to communicate with service providers for customer service on social media, but three quarters never received a response or resolution. 80% of those said they had no choice but to call.

52% of consumers expect a response within 30 minutes of their social media contract, but only 24% of service providers say they respond within that timeframe.

64% of customers say they would be willing to share their social identity with a service provider in exchange for better service. 48% would want relevant, personalized offers from the provider via social media.

93% of service providers can’t identify customers from their social media profiles while 64% don’t store social media interactions in their CRM database.

“Subscribers are increasingly reaching out to their service provider across social media for customer care but due to lack of customer insights service providers are only able to provide generic responses, leaving the customer feeling more frustrated.” said Shagun Bali, an analyst at Ovum. “However, if service providers link their customer’s social identity to the customer profile already stored in their CRM systems they can gain contextual knowledge of the customer, and as a result deliver a consistent response while improving customer satisfaction and cutting costs by increasing first call resolution (FCR).”

“The research shows a huge opportunity to deflect customer care to lower-cost, social media channels and to increase Net Promoter Score (NPS) and positive word-of-mouth visibility,” added Rebecca Prudhomme, VP for product and solution marketing at Amdocs. “When people take to Twitter or Facebook to ask questions or, worse yet, complain about their service provider, that’s an opportunity the service provider can take to proactively resolve that customer’s issue – if they know that customer’s real identity.”

There’s no question that social media is having a significant impact on CRM. Look at this infographic from Fanhub. The problem is that too many businesses aren’t putting enough focus on what is clearly a major demand from customers.

Via AllTwitter

Image via Twitter