• About 50% of respondents 18 and older expect the brand to read their tweets
• 57% of those age 45-54 expect it
• 65% of those age 55+ expect it
• Yet only 33% say they’ve received a brand follow-up regarding a Tweeted complaint!

I am not a big complainer on Twitter but have felt the need to do it a few times when it seems like the best or only place to get help in a timely manner. It is inappropriate to vent, curse, and insult the brand but you still need to explain your issue in an aggressive way so that the brand understands your displeasure. Also don’t think it will always work, the statistic above says only 33% of people are receiving responses to their Twitter complaints, and who knows what type of responses these people are getting.

When Delta severely delayed my flight in June due to crew rest, my family and I could not make our connection to make our family reunion in St. Louis; so I went to Twitter to see if we could get some explanations and customer service. To their credit a Delta representative responded within an hour and left me the customer service center phone number. The only problem is that the call center is closed on weekends and we could not get resolution until the next Tuesday, when they refunded our tickets with vouchers.

Delta and other large companies are trying very hard to use Twitter to support customer issues and help save face for the brand. LegalZoom is the only company that I have felt like was really making an effort to resolve my issues as soon as possible.  They would call and email me any updates with my account issues and took care of all the paperwork. Granted it was their fault in the first place, they made a genuine effort to fix the problem as quickly as possible, which I think should be expected from all brands.

Are you listening to what customers are saying about your brand on Twitter and other social media platforms? If not, you might be falling short of their expectations—and that’s never good for business. Contact the Social Strategy1 team to learn more about using social media as a customer service tool to listen and respond to the voice of the customer.

Michael F. Lewis II is a Social Media Consultant and Marketing Analyst for Social Strategy1.  He contributes several blogs weekly to the SS1 site.  Connect with Michael on Twitter via @mlewii.