Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

UK Businesses Ignore Social Media Potential

July 30, 2014

Social Media is a very important form of communication in this digital age. Worldwide, people interact and socialize on platforms such a Facebook and Twitter each day.  Strangely enough, many of companies, at least those in UK, have not woken up to the potential of social media communication, according to a report published by Webhelp UK.


Webhelp recently conducted a survey named,“Connected Customers,” that found only 15 percent of companies responded to customer tweets. Webhelp carried out a secret shopping exercise to see how responsive UK companies were online, and the results were very disappointing. 

Even among the companies that responded, most took ages (by the internet standard) before responding. The report stated that an alarming 64 percent of companies took more than one hour to respond to customer tweets.

It seems that internet awareness was more among the customers; more than 60 percent of customers said that they were likely to lodge a complaint through emails. 

Another vital piece of information that was learned from the survey was the inconsistency in providing information across various channels. This clearly demonstrates the lack of proper management of big data.

David Turner, Webhelp UK CEO, stated: “Our report clearly demonstrates that the face of customer engagement is constantly changing. Although traditional forms of communication still play a predominant role in conversations between companies and their customers, they cannot be offered in isolation. People now expect to be able to contact companies through multiple channels; switching between them at their convenience. However, our report suggests while many businesses have developed new channels in response to customer demand, many still fall short of delivering effective customer support through them.”

Apart from publishing informative surveys, Webhelp also works to assist the community in various ways. Recently, the company joined hands with MacMillan Cancer Support forging a charity partnership deal for 2014. The company's employees are planning to raise a remarkable £23,500 to give it to MacMillan Cancer Support.





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