Study: brands don't listen, answering fewer than half of customer questions on Facebook (infographic)

Customer service is going social. Unfortunately, it’s traveling on the slow boat to customer satisfaction.

Brands on Facebook and Twitter are all about engagement, right? Sometimes it seems as if the answer is only yes when engagement means brands talk and consumers listen. Particularly in the automotive industry, where only 26 percent of customer queries get answered.

Socialbakers, the social analytics company, measured companies’ responsiveness across nine different industries to arrive at what it calls “social devotion:” using social media effectively to improve customer satisfaction — and ROI.

The results are not great.

Less than 50 percent of customer questions asked on Facebook pages were actually answered across all industries during the July-September time frame. That includes alcohol companies at 30.8 percent, electronics brands just a bit higher at 34.2 percent, and, of course, the aforementioned automotive companies, which manage to answer just a hair more than a quarter of their customer inquiries.

But at least the recent stats are better than earlier in 2012. From March-May, brands across all industries answered only 30 percent of social media customer questions. So Socialbakers found a 60 percent improvement.

Here’s the full infographic:

photo credit: x-ray delta one via photopin cc