August 2nd, 2023, Bhavika Bansal
Shaped by today's fast-moving, digital-first world, customer service has become an increasingly public affair. Consumer issues are no longer resolved solely through traditional counters, call centers and email channels but also on social media. Consumers today have begun to expect rapid, 24/7 responses making social media a preferred channel for customer service, albeit a challenging one.
In a recent YouGov Surveys: Serviced poll – conducted across 18 international markets – we asked consumers whether they reached out to a brand’s social media platforms/handles for complaints over the past six months.
Data from the poll reveals that more than two out of five of all global consumers (44%) say that they have reached out to a brand’s social media handle to register complaints across at least one given product category in the past six months. Looking more closely at these respondents reveals some interesting differences.
One in four of our global respondents say they have reached out to an online marketplaces’ social media platform to complain (24%) followed by a fifth who say the same about food and beverage brands (21%) and travel and tourism companies (19%).
An equal proportion of global respondents say they have used social media to register their complaints in the case of automotive products and services, insurance products and out-of-home entertainment (14% for all).
A deeper look at the consumers who have made such complaints on a food and beverage brand’s social media platforms across markets reveals further nuances.
A third of consumers in India who have made complaints on a brand’s social media handle over the past six months say they have done so in the case of a food and beverage brand (31%, the highest of all markets). One in four consumers in Singapore (26%), China (25%), Hong Kong (23%) and Australia (23%) say they have done the same.
Much like the global average, a fifth of respondents in Canada (22%), the US (20%) and Mexico (19%) say they have reached out to a food and beverage brand’s social media handle for complaints over the past six months.
Respondents across our polled European markets share more diverse views. While nearly a quarter of Swedes say they have made complaints on a food and beverage brand’s social media handle (23%), less than a fifth of respondents in the UK and Spain agree (17% for both). Just one in eight consumers in Italy (12%) say that they have done the same.
On the other hand, nearly three in ten consumers in the UAE (29%) who have used a brand’s social media platform for complaints have done so in the case of a food and beverage brand.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 511 and 1999 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in May 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.