TMCnews Featured Article

Not all companies are providing the level of service customers expect. The surprising thing is that these same companies may not be aware of the problem. Consider the service provider that wants to continue to extend its brand in the market. A sales rep is responsible for making the personal connections and supporting customers even after the sale. The problem is that once the sale is final, the rep no longer returns calls.

The assumption that a closed sale is a happy customer is one that can lead to other problems for the brand. Trusting that the sales rep is maintaining the quality of the brand in the market is a risk. Fortunately, customers have other options, especially when the omni-channel customer engagement experience has been created. The company wants to offer multiple channels for connection and social media is a powerful option.

Case in point, a customer was struggling with their donation software. They knew it had the capability to better separate names on the list, but the complexity of the interface made it difficult to determine the best approach. Multiple calls to the sales rep they originally worked with yielded no return. A post to the brand’s Facebook (News - Alert) page, however, spurred an almost immediate reaction and spurred the return call.

This capability is important for companies that want to remain relevant today. It’s easy to assume you’ve created the omnichannel customer engagement experience if you offer more than one way to connect. It’s challenging to include social media channels in the contact center mix, especially when your staff is already stretched trying to connect with every live call that comes in. But, offering multiple channels that include the immediacy of social media can help to reduce the number of live calls and make all interactions more manageable.

A recent Aspect (News - Alert) blog examined what social media will mean for the contact center. Traditionally, the marketing team has been responsible for social media interactions as these channels tend to be important for promoting the brand and interacting with potential customers. But consumers are learning the power of social media interactions in getting rapid responses that they aren’t getting through traditional channels. That makes social that much more important for the contact center creating the omnichannel customer engagement experience.

To that end, it’s important that there’s a clear strategy around the use of social as a customer interaction tool. It’s not enough to simply monitor the channels – contact centers need to be proactive in how they engage on social platforms. The good news is that it’s also an opportunity to ensure satisfaction and loyal relationships when these interactions are handled properly. In doing so, companies create not only happy customers, but also advocates more likely to use their own social channels to talk about their satisfaction with the brand. What better way to promote continued success?