I noticed this a few months ago and realized what it was but ignored it because I wasn’t worried. When it comes to responding to our clients’ customers on Facebook, we have a policy in place. But, three months later, I have more insight into why Facebook is doing this and it will really affect business owners who ignore it.
It’s About Customer Service
I hear a lot of people complaining about how bad customer service has gotten, across the board in all industries. It’s why I preach to clients and potential clients that Facebook and Twitter are truly customer service platforms as well as branding platforms. People WILL complain on social media because it is easy and passive aggressive. Face it, most people are passive aggressive. Companies that don’t respond quickly face a huge backlash, as seen a few weeks ago in Eau Claire. Facebook, though, is REWARDING businesses with fast customer response times; the reward, I believe, is simple – get found easier in local searches in Graph Search. Facebook wants to make sure businesses don’t jump ship since the algorithm changes demolished reach in the past year. If you can be found above your competitors in an organic Facebook Graph Search because of response time on your page, businesses will start to be more responsive and stay on Facebook and realize they need to adjust advertising budgets and spend money on the once free social network.
![Facebook Response]()
Time is of the Essence
The biggest issue I have with this new “response time” metric is businesses need to respond to 90% of the time within a median
response time of 5 minutes. If you do this, you get a badge on your page. Most people do not leave complaints or ask questions during business hours. They wait until the evening or even the middle of the night making it impossible for rapid response unless your business has 24/7 online brand monitoring. Unless you are a large brand, this is virtually impossible. I think for this to really work, Facebook needs to change the response time policy in order to receive the badge. It rewards the larger businesses and harms the small businesses which make up the majority of pages on Facebook.
What do you think?
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