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Brands Expected to Respond to Tweets in One Hour

This past weekend I ran Spartan Race, a three-mile obstacle run in Milwaukee, WI. While anxiously waiting for the race I was thinking more about going to my favorite Milwaukee restaurant, AJ Bombers.  And, by favorite I mean they have the most incredible bloody marys known to man (and woman).

Sure, the race would be great – but, man, the reward of walking my tired feet onto the peanut shell laden floor and sit my exhausted body down at a table just waiting to be filled with burgers and bloody marys was going to make my Saturday complete.

Well, then this happened:

 

According to a recent article, consumers are expecting a response from a brand mention in one hour. That’s right, just one hour. 53 percent of consumers expect acknowledgement within an hour however, that number rises to 70 percent if the tweet is negative in nature.

And, they’re right.

I wanted AJ Bombers to know I was disappointed I couldn’t stay there. And, more than that I wanted them to acknowledge my disappointment.

Now, let’s just close our eyes and go to pretend land for a minute or two. Let’s say instead of tweeting about being bummed I couldn’t get to my bloody mary I was tweeting about not finding a vehicle when I stopped on the lot to look.

What might those tweets look like:

“Pretty bummed the dealership didn’t have the black Civic Si with black rims I saw on their website.”

On a basic level you have to ask yourself: Who is listening when someone mentions your dealership on social media?

Going further than that, you must ask yourself: Are we doing everything we possibly can to stay proactive so when we are reactive we are taken seriously?

Let’s look at the stats:

Tweet to a brand and expect response in…

Immediately – 14 %

5 minutes to 30 minutes – 19 %

Angry Tweet to a brand and expect response in…

Under one hour – 72% that’s up from 53% if the tweet is neutral in nature.

Unanswered Tweet to a brand…

An overwhelming 60% will take a negative action toward that brand.

At the end of the day I didn’t get my bloody mary from AJ Bombers, but I did discover a new place in Milwaukee and there’s nothing wrong with that. Right?

Question:

If they’re engaging with you via social media chances are they are on the move. What happens if you sent them a link with an alternative vehicle to look at? How does it look on their mobile device?

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Jessica is a Branding and Marketing professional, working to keep DealerRefresh the automotive industry's leading community based blog and forum. She'...
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    KevinFrye
  • November 5, 2013
First - CONGRATS on your Spartan Race, that is awesome :)  I cannot agree more with this piece, however the cynical side of me says that many dealers still struggle to answer a new Internet lead promptly, let alone respond to a tweet. I believe this will take some time, and for many dealers, an outside vendor will assist them in detecting tweets with their name and responding on behalf of the dealership.
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    JessicaRuth
  • November 6, 2013
KevinFrye I agree with you. Unless there is a dedicated person managing social media I can see this being difficult to attack.
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    BillSimmons
  • November 8, 2013
Great post Jessica. In a case like this, I highly recommend the Mention app. I am notified as soon as a tweet is posted containing our dealership name. It allows me to respond very quickly. It also works if someone makes a post on our Facebook page. We had a customer just this week unfortunately that had a bad experience in our service department. She posted her experience on our FB page. By being able to respond quickly, we were able to address her needs and satisfy her issue before she posted to other review sites.
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