Twitter’s slowest UK brand response: 39hrs 22min

Market research company, BDRC Continental has unveiled the findings of its latest mystery shopping report, which highlights leading UK brands and their capacity to deliver customer service via Twitter.

Results were mixed – on the whole, the UK’s top 100 brands were relatively quick to respond to BDRC’s ‘mystery’ tweets, with Virgin Trains leading the way with an average response time of just 4 mins 25 secs, followed by Nationwide at 6 mins and 26 secs and Paddy Power in just 7 mins 17 secs.

However, some brands ignored virtually all of the queries sent their way, with JD Wetherspoons responding to just 4% of queries. Just 17% managed to answer 100% of inbound queries, and one brand took 39hrs 22mins to respond on one occasion.

The brand in question was French Connection, which, alongside The Co-Op, GAP, SportsDirect, TalkTalk and Burger King was guilty of taking 24 hours or more to answer tweets.

Twitter now in its second decade

As highlighted by the ongoing MyCustomer guide to social customer service, some businesses are being inundated with queries on Twitter, with expectations for a response and resolution growing.

In the Sprout Social Q1 2016 Index, top brands were hit with an average of 2,742 incoming messages per day across social networks. However, BDRC Continental director, Tim Barber, believes that provides little excuse for the UK’s biggest brands:

“Twitter was 10 years old in March so companies have had plenty of time to learn how to use it effectively to handle customer queries. Moreover, consumers are increasingly using it as their first option when trying to contact a company. Gone are the days when most would pick up the phone or fire off an email.

“The best brands have set the bar high by responding quickly and inclusively on Twitter. That response quality then becomes the expectation consumers have of all companies. The British brands that are failing on Twitter need to be careful that they aren’t being left behind by their competitors, or their customers may go elsewhere.”