Social Customer Service on Twitter: How the Big Brands Match Up [Infographic]

Now that so many big brands have taken to social media, you'd think that they would be more accessible to their customers than ever. If you have a question or concern about their product, you just shoot them a tweet. Problem solved.

Most companies start with good intentions and see Twitter as another useful tool to further build their brand. They can gauge customer feedback in real time and respond right away. Customers feel valued and appreciate the time a brand takes to address their specific message. 

Unfortunately, what happens is that when some global brands stop answering or are very delayed in doing so, they start looking like the big company that is too busy to take care of their customers and shouldn't be on social media in the first place.

Thanks to Software Advice, they chose 14 of the biggest brands in the world and put their social customer service skills to the test. They had four Twitter accounts send out 280 tweets over 26 days and recorded these two key metrics:

1. "The average amount of time it took for the brand to respond when they replied to our tweets."
2. " The response rate based on the total number of replies relative to total tweets sent."

The results were broken down into business sectors, where two brands faced off against each other to see which one had the best overall customer service.

Fast Food:

McDonalds had quite a delayed response at 37 hours and 47 minutes and only responded to 10% of the tweets directed towards them. However, a response is better than keeping quiet like Starbucks did.

Soft Drinks:

In the battle of the soft drink kings, Pepsi came out on top in response time at a speedy 19 minutes, but Coca Cola responded to 15% more tweets.

Credit Cards:

Visa was left in the dust here with no response. MasterCard showed they are getting the hang of social customer service by responding in just over a half hour and to 25% of the tweets.

Banking:

Both banks did well, with Wells Fargo slightly faster at responding and Bank of America responding to a few more tweets. This one looks like a draw.

Retail - Big Box: 

Walmart, arguably the biggest retail store in the world, failed to deliver on Twitter. Home Depot did respond in 1 hour and 2 minutes, responding to 15% of the tweets.

Consumer Technology:

For how tech savvy Apple is in their line of globally popular products, it's surprising they didn't take the time to respond to any of the tweets directed to them. HP may have took almost 29 hours to respond, but at least they did.

Personal Care: 

Gillette was the faster responder at 1 hour and 29 minutes, compared to Colgate's 9 hour and 42 minute response. Both brands responded to 15% of the tweets. There's some room for improvement, but it's good to see they are taking the time to respond to their customers on a platform that is comfortable to them.