Brandwatch has ranked 68 brands’ customer service according to positive sentiment on Twitter. First Direct tops the list with 65% of tweets about its brand being positive, followed by Apple with 62% then John Lewis with 59%. Propping up the bottom are Ikea, Samsung and Primark, with 0%, 2%, and 3% positive sentiment respectively.

Of the six brands for which detailed findings are provided (B&Q, Easyjet, John Lewis, M&S, Santander and Vodafone), John Lewis receives the least specific and general complaints and also the least direct requests for help on Twitter. Therefore its relative inactivity, responding to only 5-10% of mentions, around 50 tweets a week, can be put down to the fact that it has less to respond to than others.

Compare this with another British retail stalwart, M&S. Ranked 24^th on the list M&S also responds to only around 5% of mentions on Twitter but positive sentiment for its brand is far lower (20%). It receives a greater number of complaints and direct requests than John Lewis but it does not respond to either on Twitter. In fact the 70 tweets a week M&S sends are solely in response to general news/PR.

Vodafone and Easyjet are the most active of the six brands. Vodafone sends around 900 tweets a week, Easyjet half that; both respond to around 30% of mentions and have decent rates for replying to direct requests. There is a noticeable difference in Twitter tactics though. Vodafone responds to 100% of general praise but only 25% of general abuse, Easyjet appears to prioritise the latter, responding to 50% of general abuse and only 35% of general praise.

Along with B&Q, Vodafone is the only brand with a dedicated presence on forums, a real missed opportunity for others as all are being talked about on forums. B&Q’s response rate to direct requests on Twitter is also worth mentioning: 100%. However, Easyjet, B&Q and Vodafone all fall below M&S in terms of overall positive sentiment, ranking 28^th, 29^th and 45^th respectively.

The larger proportion of negative sentiment for the three brands may well be because they have actively embraced Twitter as a customer service channel. While people do complain about M&S on Twitter, those looking for a response must by now have learned to contact the brand in another way. In this sense the rankings do not provide an accurate picture of overall customer satisfaction.

It is also plausible that M&S’s core offering is superior to the likes of B&Q, Vodafone, and Easyjet. This certainly appears to be the case with John Lewis. Social media is there to amplify and improve a core service; if the product is shoddy no response rate will help. But, given Twitter’s older demographic correlates with M&S’s, the retailer would be wise to engage fully with negative sentiment online.

Tags: Apple, B&Q, brandwatch, Consumer Index Survey, Easyjet, First direct, hugh jordan, john lewis, M&S, Santander, vodafone