While social media seems to be the go-to platform for customer feedback – 67% of all social media posts relate to customer service – posts can often be jumped on and derailed by a large number of other users.
According to iBleat CEO Grant Campbell, social media has its drawbacks. "Businesses have to monitor, mine and search social media for posts directed to them. Social media posts may get incorrectly tagged and fall through the cracks, thus not reaching the company. This compounds an existing problem as 60% of consumers who reach out to a business on social media expect a response within 1 hour or less (Sykes). Should they not receive that response their dissatisfaction increases. From our experience posting publicly usually occurs when an issue has not been satisfactorily resolved and posts are out of frustration, with the need to name and shame.
"Following this – and likely as a result of these drawbacks – we have seen WeChat, WhatsApp and Messenger enter the market, allowing customers to contact businesses to open a chat conversation, while some businesses have launched their own chat applications. These chat options have proved themselves for individual and group chat communication but have not been designed as a specific customer care solution. Rather, they are merely a platform to open a dialogue between a customer and business."
iBleat lists the following benefits of the app:
• You don’t have to search for a business’s details.
• Bleats are private and secure and are correctly directed, while retaining the ability for you to share to Facebook or Twitter should an issue not be satisfactorily resolved.
• Businesses can instantly respond, with the full Bleat info increasing their ability to engage effectively.
• Contributes to the decluttering of social media.
• Integration with customer relationship management tools such as Zendesk, Salesforce, etc. is possible.
• Businesses may pass credits, coupons and QR codes within iBleat to a user.
• A full history and database enables businesses to interpret all customer interactions.
"We believe that more good happens than bad and iBleat creates an easy platform to recognise good service."
iBleat is available for free download on Android and iOS. For more information visit the iBleat website.
