With the ability of social media to amplify a single negative customer experience, you'd expect every company that cares about its brand to have a plan in place to deal with negative online buzz. Especially since this trend is only likely to continue, given that 18- to 34-year-olds are more than three times as likely to use social media to complain about a brand or product than those in the 47-to-64 age group. But research collected by eMarketer found only half of companies use social media to track and follow up on customer feedback, while 44 percent had a formal social media escalation plan in place. Worse, only 40 percent of corporate communications professionals felt their companies were prepared to deal with a social media-based threat.
Infographic: Larry Buchanan