Social media support benchmarks vary across industries. Therefore it’s challenging to provide an accurate snapshot of the channels’ usage and importance. Retail and eCommerce businesses, for instance, receive significantly more social media queries than SaaS firms or healthcare companies which is reflected in their response times.
For example, companies that use social media as one of their primary support channels have a response time of around 15 minutes. On the other hand, the average business responds in 2-4 hours, and the slowest response time recorded was 72 hours. In addition, 50% of customers report getting answers within the first 4 hours of submitting a query, and 90% report receiving a response within the first 24 hours.
To fully understand social media response times, we must break the metric down into individual channels. Our findings show that Twitter and Facebook have an average response time of three hours, Instagram, four hours, and Viber, twelve hours.
These metrics indicate that support via social media is typically two times faster than support via the customer portal but two times slower than support via chat or phone. Moreover, our research suggests that the average first resolution time for social media queries is 24 hours, and the full resolution time is 48 hours.
The average handling time (AHT) for social media queries is five minutes which is relatively brief. During this time, support agents write up their responses and sometimes transfer or escalate the ticket at hand. According to social media benchmarks, only 0.5% of social media tickets are transferred before resolution, and around 10% are escalated to other support channels. Because of this, the cost per contact on social media is pretty low, averaging at $3 per contact.
On average, a business generates around ten new social media tickets each day. Approximately 60% of these social media support queries are from Facebook, 25% from Twitter, 10% from Instagram, and 5% from Viber. Interestingly enough, only 1% of customers turn to social media support after unsuccessfully attempting to resolve their problems via other channels.
In addition to promoting products and answering questions, businesses can use social media to capture leads. In the average company, five unique leads are captured via social media every day. Unfortunately, conversions are relatively low, with just 1% of interested visitors converting.
In general, customers who receive support on social media are pleased with the service they receive. Customer service benchmarks for social media suggest that the average customer satisfaction score is 70%, the average net promoter score is +20, and the average customer effort score is 10.
Social media tickets escalated to other channels
#SocialMedia
#SupportChannels
An average of
10%
Average response times on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
#SocialMedia
The average response
time on
- Twitter is 3 hours
- Facebook is 3 hours
- Instagram is 4 hours
- Viber is 12 hours
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Social media ticket handle times
#SocialMediaSupport
The average handle time for social media support tickets is
5 min
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Social media cost per contact
#CostPerContact
The average cost per contact for social media support is
$3
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Social media ticket transfers
#SocialMediaTicket
Around
0.5%
of social media tickets are transferred before they are resolved.
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The social media satisfaction rate
#SatisfactionRate
Social media support has a
70%
customer satisfaction rate.
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Customers switching to social media for service
#SocialMedia
1%
of customers turn to social media support after unsuccessfully attempting to resolve their problems via other channels.
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Social media CSAT
#CSAT
#SocialMedia
The average Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) for social media is
70%
Social media response time bands
#ResponseTime
50%
of customers get answers within the first 4 hours and, 90% receive responses within 24 hours after contacting customer service via social media.
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Social media first and full resolution time
#SocialMedia
The first resolution time for social media is
24 hr
and the full resolution is 48 hours on average.
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Social media NPS
#NPS
The average Net Promoter Score (NPS) for social media is
20
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Social media CES
#CES
CES (CustomerEffort Score) for social media is
10
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Net social media tickets
#SocialMedia
The average business nets ten social media tickets
ten
tickets
per day.
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Social media ticket volume by network
#SocialMedia
- 60% of social media support queries come from Facebook
- 25% from Twitter
- 10% from Instagram
- and 5% from Viber
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Social media conversion rates
#ConversionRates
#SocialMediaTickets
Conversions from social media tickets are lower than
1%
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Social media lead capture
#LeadCapture
Social media support tickets generate
five
leads
per day on average.
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Social media response times compared to other channels
#ResponseTimes
Support via social media is typically 2x faster than support via the customer portal but 2x slower than support via chat or phone.
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Fastest, average, and slowest social media response times
#ResponseTimes
The fastest social media response time is around
15 minutes,
the average social media response time is
2 hours
and the slowest response time on social media is around
72 hours
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Customer service statistics 
Call center statistics 
Help desk statistics 
Live chat statistics 
Knowledge base statistics 
Social media service statistics 