A customer asks under an Instagram post why her order still has not arrived after a week. A prospect sends the company’s Facebook page a direct message about pricing. On LinkedIn, a business customer comments that he has been waiting days for a callback. All three are service cases. In many small and mid-sized companies, they still end up with someone whose real job is planning posts \u2013 or with nobody at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the German digital association Bitkom, 80 percent<\/strong> of companies in Germany with 20 or more employees now run at least one social media profile, and 70 percent<\/strong> explicitly name good customer service as a goal of that activity. Between that goal and daily practice there is often an organisational gap. This article shows how service teams can close it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you run a profile, you will receive requests through it. Customers do not distinguish between a “marketing channel” and a “service channel”. They write wherever they happen to see the company. In the consumer survey behind the Sprout Social Index 2025, 73 percent<\/strong> expect a response within 24 hours or sooner. The same share say they are more likely to buy from a competitor if a brand does not respond to them on social media. The survey covers English-speaking markets, but the trend matches what service teams in Germany report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The difference from phone or email: much of it is public<\/strong>. An unanswered complaint under a post is seen not only by the person who wrote it, but by everyone who scrolls past afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most common mistake is not a poor reply but a missing one. Usually that is because the profile belongs to marketing and nobody has defined when a message becomes a service case. A simple split works well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The handover matters most. When marketing spots a service case, it is not passed on informally but handed to the service team as a case \u2013 with the link, the customer’s name and the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For public comments, one rule of thumb applies: reply briefly and visibly, then move the actual case into a private channel. A good first reply acknowledges the issue and names a person and the next step, for example: “Sorry to hear that, Ms Berger. We are looking into it and will send you a direct message shortly.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two points deserve particular care:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the issue is solved, a short public closing note under the original comment is worthwhile. That way, other readers can see the request did not simply disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As long as comments and direct messages only appear in the platforms’ own apps, they stay invisible to planning. Nobody knows how many are open, how long the oldest has been waiting, or whether the same customer has called in the meantime. An omnichannel contact centre such as myContactCenter<\/strong> from ilogixx brings phone, email, chat and messaging together in one interface. For social media, this comes down to three things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where a platform does not allow a direct connection, a fixed review routine with handover to the ticket system is the minimum. What counts is that a social media case follows the same rules as any other contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No small team can be available around the clock, and it does not need to be. What matters is that expectations are right. Three measures help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Measure only a few figures: number of requests per channel, time to first response, share of cases fully resolved, and how often the same person follows up through another channel. The last one is a good sign that the first answer was not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Customer service on social media does not need its own department. It needs clear ownership, a fixed rule for public and private replies, and handling in the same system as phone and email. Then comments and direct messages stop being a distraction and become a channel where customers can see that someone takes care of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSocial media is a service channel, whether you plan it or not<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Clarify ownership: who answers what?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Respond in public, resolve in private<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Handle every message in one place<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Set response times and manage expectations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Conclusion: a channel like any other \u2013 just more visible<\/h2>\n\n\n\n