It's a given that a brand has to have a social media presence. The only problem is that some brands are really bad at it. And we aren't just talking about obvious flubs—like when McDonald's #McDStories hashtag prompted people to publicly bash the fast food joint—but simple bad customer service, like ignoring Tweet complaints, which has very real consequences.
According to a study commissioned by Conversocial, which manages customer service on social media for everyone from Groupon to Net-A-Porter, more than half of consumers surveyed (55 percent) were disappointed by big brands' communication on social media.
"If people have a bad experience in-store, they will tweet it -- amplifying it 100 fold," Joshua March, CEO of Conversocial, told Business Insider. "This can have a massive negative affect." In fact, 88 percent of consumers were unlikely to buy from a brand that ignored their complaints on Facebook or Twitter.
So who are the winners and losers on social media? In general, supermarkets, telecommunications, and retail banks were the worst offenders while restaurants and department stores had it down.
Conversocial's study ranked how satisfied customers were with a brand's social media presence. Most of those surveyed answered "no opinion," which means that while a brand wasn't doing anything wrong it wasn't doing anything right either.
Here's how they rank in terms of the percent of people who were satisfied with their social media interactions:
Best Buy: 50.8 percent
Subway: 48.8 percent
Target: 47.8 percent
Walgreens: 45.8 percent
J.C. Penney: 42.5 percent
McDonald's: 41.9 percent
CVS: 41.4 percent
Apple Store: 40.8 percent
Starbucks: 40.8 percent
Walmart: 40.3 percent
Burger King: 39.2 percent
Verizon Wireless: 37.3 percent
AT&T Wireless: 34.8 percent
Macy's: 33.9 percent
Sears: 33.1 percent
Dell: 32.7 percent
Game Stop: 32.4 percent
The Gap: 31.2 percent
Bank of America: 31 percent
Radio Shack: 30.4 percent
Rite Aid: 28.7 percent
Comcast: 27.9 percent
Nordstrom: 26.1 percent
Citi Bank: 25.8 percent
7-Eleven: 25.3 percent
Costco: 23.5 percent (largest percent that didn't respond: 46.1 percent)
Time-Warner Cable: 23.3 percent
Neiman Marcus: 22.2 percent
Chase Manhattan: 21.2 percent
The Limited: 20.2 percent
Safeway: 19.2 percent
HSBC: 18.2 percent
TD Bank: 16.3 percent
Shoprite: 16 percent
A&P: 16 percent
Publix: 15.8 percent
Cablevision: 14.6 percent
Supervalu: 8.9 percent
When looking within individual fields: Subway was better than Starbucks, McDonald's trumped Burger King, Best Buy beat Apple, and Target dominated department stores.
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