Social media engagement down to speed of customer response

Analysis of the social media customer engagement effectiveness of top brands across six industries saw Microsoft coming as the tops for social media customer service

Key among the study's findings across the six industry sectors is a correlation between rapid customer service response times and positive consumer sentiment on social media.

Using Alterian's social media monitoring tool, SM2, the engagement study tracked nearly 350,000 social media mentions over more than six months. For each of the six industries included in the study (travel, banking, cable, mobile, gaming and consumer electronics), Alterian researchers picked two competing brands and reached out to them via Twitter.

Brands were asked a variety of standard customer service requests, such as "Can you point me to your price plans online?" Across all six industries, the brand with the faster response time enjoyed higher favourability ratings during the period studied.

So who's better at social media customer service -Dell or HP? American Airlines or Delta? Here are the scores on the doors

• Travel: American Airlines outperformed Delta
• Banking: Citi bested Bank of America
• Cable :Time Warner beat Comcast
• Mobile: AT&T edged out Verizon
• Gaming: Microsoft (Xbox) outranked Sony (Playstation)
• Consumer Electronics : Dell surpassed HP

Based on the study results, Microsoft was the top performer across all industries, achieving the highest overall score for social media customer service.
"The results of Alterian's brand engagement study confirm the importance of social media as a vital customer engagement tool for even the largest organisations," said Mike Talbot, President of Alterian.

"Some of the brands this study looked at are setting the curve for what a social media presence should be, but others are at risk of being left behind. Consumers are taking notice, and brands are being rewarded or punished accordingly."