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Hosted Call Centers Need to Acknowledge Other Possible Channels

By TMCnet Staff

As technology continues to advance at a dizzying pace, even the most seasoned veterans are having trouble keeping up. But there is one nascent area where it makes sense for anyone and everyone who works in a call center to stay abreast: social media.

In a recent post on business website Business 2 Community, Technology Writer Joshua March makes a strong case for the rise of social media in a contact center, why customers like it, and why those on the receiving end need to know and understand it.

“Why would I sit on hold, or email, and risk waiting days for a response, when I can just Tweet from my iPhone (News - Alert) and get a fast response, sometimes within minutes,” he asks. Why indeed?

March notes that the immediacy of social media is just one of many strong selling points in its favor. With the upcoming generation never having known a time when social media didn’t exist, they expect to find it in every facet of their lives. Hence, when they have a problem or need a question answered, it seems most logical to them to reach out and expect a fast answer. That’s simply the way it’s always been for them.

“Social media has different consumer expectations from other digital channels,” Morse notes. “It combines real-time expectations with asynchronous workflow. Responding with the same SLAs as email (often measured in days) would be disastrous — consumers expect a social media response in well under an hour (with First Response Time for many leading brands now counted in the minutes).”

Hence, companies that don’t yet have one would be wise to start planning and building a separate social media component, with the ultimate goal of bringing current contact center workers up to speed on this aspect of the technology as well. To help convince the “powers that be” that this is the right step, Morse makes the argument for having a dedicated social media team including:

• It’s simple to train the right behavior;
• Mistakes can be minimized as agents are highly specialized;
• Dedicated agents become social-savvy very quickly;
• Information (e.g. new processes) can spread quickly among the team;
• Doing so allows agents to take a social-first approach, with processes and workflow that are best for social (and the customer), instead of trying to fit social into a traditional model.

Finally, if all that’s not enough reason to consider making a move, Morse sums it up succinctly: “Social media customer service is in general more informal and more human than traditional channels,” he writes. “Social agents often have more freedom, and enjoy their work far more than over traditional channels. The social media team is a highly coveted role for most agents.”

In short, you’ll end up with happy, efficient workers that get the job done more quickly. So why are you waiting?