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Social networks stopped being a narrative channel for consumer experiences, now they are seen as a mailbox for complaints.
It is the high seasons, such as Christmas, which put the magnifying glass on the level of satisfaction of the digital consumer.
The importance of social marketing is growing to avoid a brand crisis and generate conversation around a product or service.
Social networks have become a useful tool for the consumer, who now with the digital age seeks a morally correct and agile response from brands about the products or services they offer.
However, in the way of immediacy and customer service, Internet users do not consider the impact that a complaint can have on the reputation of the company and unload their frustrations on massive platforms where more and more users join, positively or negatively, to narrate consumer experiences and generate a “thread” of satisfaction.
And although social marketing has also become the strongest means of communication, since it benefits users around the world by generating conversation between brand and consumer, disseminating useful information and promoting current changes in the industry, it is also seen as a complaints box and the key and initial factor of an image crisis.
This, since many times the complaint is viralized, with or without a basis that truly gives the customer the reason, before the company is allowed to become aware of the disagreement and offer a solution. That is why the role of the community manager has become relevant in the business organization chart.
Its role, broadly speaking, is to respond immediately to the consumer of social networks, provide solutions, information, guidance and public apologies prior to generating a maximized social criticism of the event in question.
Digital consumer
The impact of social networks is today one of the great concerns of the industry, as the growth of consumer complaints on platforms such as Twitter becomes a fundamental studio coup for brands: the audience pays more attention to their actions.
The new consumer no longer only seeks to read the opinions of others before making purchase decisions, now he plays with the precept of the life experience that the object or service of interest generates in his environment and the impact that his life itself can bring. However, following the actions of a company has become a habit of Internet users, who can choose not to consume based on the social reputation they have, the type of values they demonstrate and even the personal behavior of their managers in the Web.
And is that, according to social marketing experts, for every positive comment that consumers leave on a social page, two negatives monopolize the attention in the same business publication. Complaints about customer service by employees of a brand and dissatisfaction with the shipping service are the most frequent.
Complaint season: social media and consumer
According to the study “Social networks: the complaint forum”, published in 2020 by WhoIsHostingThis, social networks are the medium that most drives or pulls a brand, above all, measuring the behavior patterns of consumers during the holiday season.
It is high purchase seasons such as Christmas that most alter the negative interaction of Internet users.
According to the analysis:
- Half of consumers admit to having published some bad practice of a brand or company on social networks.
- 61 percent of negative posts end in in Facebook and 30 percent in Twitter.
- 73 percent of the buyers surveyed say that reporting on digital platforms is not only acceptable, but also more feasible to solve dissatisfaction problems.
- 53 percent consider that it is perfectly understandable that the complaint is directly attached to the CEO of the company to exhaust communication channels and achieve more views in the same comment.
- Most Internet users bet on social pressure to attract the attention of a brand, others do not seek polarization and are satisfied with the response of the community manager on social networks, but they display it negatively again if it is not to their liking.
- Restaurants and retailers are the ones that mostly star in the “complaint box” of social networks for poor service.
- Among the complaints highlighted by consumers are: high or misleading prices, poorly structured ads or not to their liking, bad experiences, disagreement with company policies (rules or returns) and political, economic or social positions of business leaders .
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