Customers nowadays are more likely to reach out to brands on social media than on any other medium. As customer service shifts to social media, brands are given an opportunity to build trust and loyalty simply by responding in a timely, personable manner.
So, how often should your brand respond on social media if you want to keep your customers happy?
We’ll tell you straight: the ideal answer to this question is ‘as soon as possible’. But alas, we know that no one can give 100% of their time and attention to responding, as no one is online 24/7.
The real question you need to answer is: How can I keep my audience engaged within the optimal response time?
There’s no real right answer for this one, but as a rule of thumb, we recommend scheduling at least one community management check every 24 hours. This is because 79% of consumers expect a response in the first 24 hours, according to the 2020 Sprout Social Index. It’s also important to know what time of the day your audience is most likely to be active and build a schedule around that.
For customer service-reliant industries like telecommunications and healthcare, it would be ideal to schedule up to 3 timed interval checks throughout the day.
How long should I perform a community management check?
To determine the duration of your checks, you have to be familiar with the intensity of the influx of comments and messages your page gets on a daily basis. Intensity is measured by how complex and heavy the interactions of your customers are.
We recommend the following time guidelines:
- Low intensity: 15 minutes per check
- Medium intensity: 30 minutes per check
- High intensity: 45 minutes per check
What if I’m unable to reply to a message within 24 hours?
When you are away or offline for an extended period of time, we recommend setting up an auto-responder in your Facebook and Instagram inbox.
Instant Replies are messages sent automatically as your Page’s first response to new messages. For example, you can use instant reply messages to let customers know that you’ll get back to them soon or thank them for contacting your page. I
TLDR;
The bottom line is the faster you respond to your customers and followers, the better. But if that sounds unrealistic, try your best to respond within 24 hours to every interaction by doing at least one community management check daily.
With our services, you can tick community management off your everyday to-do list. We can put together a community management response time plan which finds the balance between personalisation and speed. Click here to view our pricing plans.