OK there have been some interesting articles of late talking about how brands don’t get Twitter [this NMA article is a good start]. With my experience of brands and with social media, I have seen that luxury brands are even further behind their take up and attention to social media. I am not sure how they don’t get it, really. So, based on my experience [blog post coming] here is the simple equation all luxury brands need to pay attention to.

Take 1 Luxury Car – Retail Value £40,000.

Add in some appalling customer service.

Annoy said customer with over 4,000 Twitter followers.

Customer complains on Twitter to his audience.

If 10% of this audience are engaged then 400 people will see the brand is not delivering against its values.

If 5% of this 400 were in a similar demographic and lifestyle to me then we are talking about 20 potential customers.

If 50% of the 20 potential customers decide against buying that luxury car then the potential lost revenue is £400,000.

We haven’t even calculated the lifetime value of those ten lost customers.

The time taken for me to tweet said complaint? 60 seconds. Long term damage – considerable.

Do I need to explain more?

Now, these figures are open to argument – the engagement of my audience may be higher, the number of people that take action could be a lot lower, but it could be higher. Just because a brand is deemed as luxury it does not mean they can ignore the masses. Of course, offering good customer service would negate this equation in the first place but you can’t take that for granted either.

Take this equation, put your own numbers in and see what happens and let me know what you come up with.