While many retailers have a Facebook or Twitter profile, few are conducting adequate customer service through these social tools. Long response times, unanswered questions and other customer service missteps were among some of the key pitfalls CMO.com noted in a recent survey.

This isn't an issue relegated to smaller, understaffed retail merchants either. Across the entire sample, 64 percent of brands didn't answer questions or respond to complaints, and among this group were major chains such as Costco, Kroger and Kmart.

"Unlike traditional customer-service channels, every complaint and response in Facebook and Twitter is completely public. Follow-up comments from the original, now much angrier, customer and empathetic responses from other fans can undermine the first impression of a brand for page visitors," CMO.com notes.

Conversely, well-respected retail brands frequently had quick response times. A recent customer satisfaction report from The E-tailing Group found that top 10 retailers all had response times of less than three hours.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at 2:36 am .