New research shows the growing importance of customer care and the role that the internet plays.

A recent study by the Society for New Communications Research entitled ‘Exploring the link between customer care and brand reputation in the age of social media’, studied 300 active internet users, and found that 59.1% use social media to ‘vent their feelings’ about customer care experiences.

More than 300 consumers who are active Internet users participated in a survey focusing on how customer care influences brand reputation given the widespread adoption of social media. Top findings include:

1. 59.1% of respondents use social media to “vent” about a customer care experience
   72.2% of respondents research companies’ customer care online prior to purchasing products and services at least sometimes
2. 84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care at least sometimes in their decision to do business with a company
3. 74% choose companies/brands based on others’ customer care experiences shared online
4. 84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care in their decision to do business with a company at least sometimes
5. 81% believe that blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums can give consumers a greater voice regarding customer care, but less than 33% believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriously
6. Search engines are the most valuable online tools for this research, according to respondents. Those rated of no value include micro-blogging sites like Twitter or Pownce (39%), YouTube (27%) and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace (22%)

What is most worrying is that less than one-third believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriously. In short, customer care matters to them but they don’t think it matters to the companies they are buying from.

We try and take customer service seriously at MutualPoints, what can we do better than we currently do?  What examples of great customer service have you seen elsewhere on the web that you’d like to see here?