By Mikal E. Belicove|For Entrepreneur.com|April 12, 2012

Your business’s Facebook Page is every bit as important as a face-to-face encounter with a customer. But some well-known retailers fail to provide adequate customer service online.

STELLAService, a New York City-based firm that rates online retail businesses for their customer service, went undercover and posted service-related questions on 20 retailers’ Facebook walls or in the comments section below the page owner’s own status updates.

Some retailers removed the customer question from their wall without ever commenting, and another five questions remained unanswered for at least two days. Only seven businesses took the time to answer questions posted within 48 hours.

Eliminating or ignoring customers’ service-related questions posted on your Facebook Page is unprofessional at best and significantly damaging to your brand at worst. Such practices ensure only that the issue will remain unresolved and the customer will grow only angry. What brick-and-mortar company would allow an employee to walk away from a customer who has just asked them a question? None that I’m aware of, but that’s exactly what some retailers are doing online.

Businesses and brands that choose to correspond actively with their customers on Facebook will…

Continue reading Businesses Can’t Afford to Neglect Customer Service on Facebook