Call Center Management Featured Article
Why Call Center Management Should Care About Social
Not so long ago, the use of social channels was strictly forbidden at work. It was seen as a significant waste of precious time and employers wanted their people focused on productivity. Today, the picture has changed. Companies are using social as a way to market and stay connected with their audience. For call center management, it’s a way to better understand the customer and set their company apart from the competition.
Contributing to this movement is the proliferation of smartphones and mobile transactions. Consumers not only use their mobile devices to stay connected, they also use them to make purchases, post to social accounts and manage their lives. For many a brand, the offering to share the experience via social is pushed out at the completion of the transaction, promoting this kind of interaction.
The use of social not only promotes direct connections with a brand, it also supports gathering information to make informed in-store purchases. Consumers want to know what their friends are saying about a particular brand. As such, marketers need to focus on influencing those circles and not just pushing out information. In today’s market, it’s all about engagement and the customer experience. Call center management can better shape that experience if they know more about the customer.
This is where social comes in very handy. Consumers share a significant amount of information through social interactions. A failure to capture and capitalize on that information will leave a brand struggling for relevance in their market and to their audience. Consider the fact that 27 percent of UK shoppers use an online channel each month, according to IGD ShopperVista research, and 22 percent of this segment is doing so on a smartphone. If a company has a focused mobile strategy, numbers are much higher.
In the U.S., Target (News - Alert) claims that 98 percent of its customers are able to shop digitally and 70 percent can use a mobile device to do so. With this kind of access, Target not only creates the easy and seamless experience, the retail giant also caters to the preferences of the younger generations. In doing so, they have the opportunity to gather incredible insight on user behaviors and design the buying experience according to that information. With such relevance, Target has the potential to make itself indispensable to its target audience.
For call center management, this means keen insight into the wants and desires of the customer on the other end of the transaction. If the company can cater the experience according to this information, it will be very difficult for a competitor to steal the customer away.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi