Customer service is an integral part of any business’ operations. Answering complaints, fielding questions and providing feedback can make or break your reputation. And Twitter offers a prime two-way communication channel for any business, whether bootstrapping or budgeting billions.

This infographic from ZenDesk explores how companies use Twitter for customer service – and how their customers feel about their efforts.

Part of what makes Twitter great is that it is a real-time network, which allows customers to ask and companies to answer right away – if they’re willing.

According to this infographic, only half of the top ten retailers on Twitter actually bother to respond to customer complaints at all, and just 13 percent of all complaints got a response.

Over a third (37 percent) of the top 100 brands on Twitter didn’t respond to their customers until over 10 hours after the tweet was first sent – pretty poor response time in an era where we expect up-to-the-second updates in real-time.

But it’s not clear exactly why brands are so reluctant to engage with their customers. Just 9 percent of tweets are negative comments, and a third of them are complaints – the majority (48 percent) are questions about the product or company.

Take a look at the infographic from ZenDesk below for more on how companies are using Twitter for customer service (click to enlarge):

(Infographic courtesy of ZenDesk; Customer service image via Shutterstock)