I was having a casual conversation with a counterpart at a different automotive social media company yesterday when he asked, “Why do you guys monitor on the weekends? The dealer doesn’t care and as long as we reply on Monday, they’ll be fine.”

The discussion that ensued was long and nearly got heated. Thankfully, cooler minds prevailed and I let him go about his business believing that 5-day/week social media was acceptable for his clients.

It’s not.

Despite the fact that you definitely do have more time on social media to reply than on something like chat or even phone, it’s unacceptable to let it linger for too long. The opportunities for sales are missed when days pass. The opportunity to make an upset customer happy can be missed in minutes sometimes. Take a look at this exchange:

The customer replied to a post on the dealer’s Facebook page at 8:26 on Sunday. The reply came in 5 minutes later, personalized and willing to make things right. The customer replied 5 minutes later. Then, the person who could make things happen, in this case the service manager, was able to call the customer on Monday and turn an unhappy customer into a happy one. This may not have been possible had they waited to make first contact the next morning rather than while the customer was still online.

This is just a single example, and it’s the reason that we’re adamant about monitoring clients’ pages seven days per week. The weekends are when the majority of potential social media interactions occur. To take the weekends off is a poor practice, especially considering the ease in staying connected with smartphones.

Obviously everyone needs a break. We don’t monitor on the seven major US holidays (despite my objections to that, the company I work for has a bigger heart than me), but otherwise it’s important for dealers to stay on top of what people are saying to them every day of the week. Hook up your smartphone and make it happen or find someone who can do it all for you.