Many brands lack effective response to social complaints

Atlanta – More than 50% of brands don’t have a strategy in place to manage responses to social media complaints from customers. Results of a recent survey conducted by Social Media Marketing University (SMMU) shows that 58.2% of brands receive customer complaints via social media “occasionally,” 10.9% receive them “somewhat often” and 4.9% receive them “very often.”



In total, almost 75% of brands receive social media complaints. In addition, survey results show:



• 26.1% of brands' reputations have been tarnished as a result of negative social media posts; 15.2 percent lost customers and 11.4% lost revenue.



• 23.4% of brands not only do not have a strategy in place to manage negative social commentary, but do not have plans to develop one. 24.5% of brands are in the process of developing a strategy and 7.6% have strategies in place that are currently proving to be ineffective.



“So many brands are buying into the ‘friending equals spending’ mentality,” said John Souza, founder of Social Media Marketing University. “They want the benefits of social media but aren’t truly aware of the investment of effort that’s required to see a return. As a result, this lack of effort rarely produces desired results and can lead to alienation of customers, fans and followers. It can even escalate to a backlash of negativity.”