It seems that for a lot of companies having customer-care social media accounts is a goal in itself. It makes them feel modern, connected and as if they are making extra efforts in building bridges with their customers — at least that is what marketing consultants try to convince them, for a remuneration of hundreds of thousands of riyals, of course.

A few years ago, having a Facebook account was a must although it was updated every two or three months. Then came the revolution of Twitter and having an account there was more important than half of the marketing staff in the company! And again, it was rarely used in anything beneficial, it was only a hype and some companies love hypes. Instagram and Snapchat came at a later stage with exactly the same hype; a bunch of accounts to make the management feel good — the website looked better, but nothing else!

Even small firms claim using social media accounts as an outlet for customer service. The idea itself is reasonable. It provides endless opportunities for companies and brands to create value and build loyalties, but at the same time, it is full of challenges that better be understood and proper planning done accordingly. A lot of international companies had their success and failure stories with these accounts. However, when it comes to local companies, it is sad to see more failure stories than those of success.

Starting from the concept of customer care, our local companies still need some time to understand it well. If the company does not have the concept ingrained in its culture, diverse customer care channels including social media accounts alone won’t make much of a difference, on the contrary, they could hurt the brand in unprecedented ways.

In a recent Consumer Experience report by NICE Systems and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), it is found that the customer service through social media has declined over the past few years, a part of this decline is due to “businesses not paying enough attention to their social channels.”

“Two out of three consumers in the 2015 survey, who didn’t use social media for customer service, gave multiple reasons for the drop in social media use. A third (33 percent) commented that it takes too long to use social media. A similar portion (32 percent) cited the limited functionality of social media channels and 30 percent said it isn’t feasible for complex tasks,” the report concluded.

It is extremely illogical for a customer to rely on a channel when the answer most probably would be “please call our free number, have a nice day!” My personal experience with different social media accounts of local companies — some of them really big ones — has been awful. Most of the time I did not receive any response, the ones who respond would usually make the following demand before sending the question through private messaging, something that usually ends with the message “please call our free number!“

For all the companies out there, either provide proper social media service, or just save the money and spend it in improving the experience in the rest of your channels, it is that simple.