Did You Know that Over a Third of Customers who Interact with a Brand Online Do So to Complain and One in Three Social Media Users Prefer Social Customer Care Over Voice Support?
Clearly, social customer care offers companies an opportunity to improve customer service, change the perception of the call centre industry and reduce cost, if you do it right!
ROI
Remember each case solved in the social media space is one less call to the contact centre. The ROI can have far reaching effects.
Perception
Most days I log into Twitter and see a predictable stream of people criticising call centres. Social customer care handled correctly, can change this public perception.
A vital contact point in the customer journey
In the past when customers complained, they could perhaps influence 10 people. Today, a complaining customer can influence hundreds, if not thousands. Companies that are not using social media as part of their customer service platform are ignoring a vital contact point in the customer journey. This contact point can improve customer service beyond imagination.
Your customers will force you to provide social customer service
In many companies the decision makers don’t want to talk about social media, because they don’t understand it. Social media is here to stay, whether your company embraces it or not. Today’s X, Y and Millenniums see their smartphone as an extension of themselves. So whether you want to or not, eventually your customers will force you to provide social customer service.
Integrating social customer service into your contact centre
In my opinion, social customer service can move your contact centre to the next level, if you do it right. If you are thinking about launching social customer service in your contact centre, I’d like to leave you with a few final thoughts:
- Social customer service is a long term investment that can improve your contact centre. Don’t attempt to integrate social media if you are not prepared to commit to it
- Use a dedicated response team – social media is very new, and the risk is great. Specialisation can help reduce your risk
- Provide adequate training and invest in refresher training – this is a new channel, things are always changing, stay up to date
- Keep the conversation going – Have stock answers, but give your agents the freedom to personalise their responses. Social media is a ‘conversation platform’; a scripted environment can damage your brand and question your authenticity
- Have a clear escalation process and customise your SLA for threaded conversation
- If you don’t have the manpower or expertise, outsource it! Ineffective social customer service can be just as damaging as no social customer service!
Customer service is the only differentiator most companies have today. We need to step up our game by engaging customers in whatever medium possible.
