Social media is an emerging channel for customer-care assistance, with many consumers preferring to communicate this way, a report by Amdocs shows.

50 per cent of consumers have attempted to contact service providers through social media, but three quarters never received a response, demonstrating a clear need for companies to improve their social media presence.

The report, based on separate studies by Ovum and Coleman Parkes, shows that by linking customers social media identities to the profiles they store on CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems, companies can improve customer experience, reduce call centre costs and pre-empt complaints.

Customers are ready for the consumer life to be integrated with their social media presence, with 64 per cent willing to share their social identity with a service provider in return for better service, and 48 per cent happy to receive relevant, personalised offers through social media.

However, companies seem to be lagging behind on this trend, with only seven per cent able to identify customers from their social media profiles, and only 36 per cent storing interactions made through social media in the CRM databases. 68 per cent believe that customers only take to channels such as Twitter and Facebook because they have been unable to reach a care agent over the phone, but in fact half of consumers surveyed prefer using social media as a first point of contact.

“The research shows a huge opportunity to deflect customer care to lower-cost, social media channels and to increase Net Promoter Score and positive word-of-mouth visibilty,” said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president for product and solution marketing at Amdocs. “When people take to Twitter or Facebook to ask questions or, worse yet, complain about their service provider, thats an opportunity the service provider can take to proactively resolve that customers issue – if they know that customers real identity.”