Workforce Management Featured Article
Who is Responsible for Interacting with Customers via Social Channels?
Today, the “call center” is more than a bit of a misnomer. Once reserved entirely for telephone calls – even mail responses were processed somewhere else – today, the contact center is the main artery through which all customer communications should route, including social media. It’s important to note that for many companies, this still isn’t the case. Oftentimes, it’s the marketing department’s job to handle social media and the contact center is cut out of the process entirely. Unfortunately, customers today have expectations that any queries they make via social media will be answered.
Certainly, social media is a critical marketing tool. It helps complex brands (think: a shopping mall made up of hundreds of stores, or a large cultural event) cultivate a personality, a voice, that makes people want to chat and participate in events, according to a recent article by Tamara Littleton writing for eConsultancy. By getting a little edgy – something brands avoided once upon a time – companies can put themselves into the social media headlines.
“[Social media marketing] doesn’t shy away from getting in on the social-political commentary, which shows that the brand doesn’t take itself completely seriously, and that it appreciates it’s part of a larger world (one that its followers may want to seek escape from),” wrote Littleton.
When marketing has a great handle on social media, it can create emotional resonance with customers and would-be customers, and act as a great gathering place to generate excitement, controversy or hands-on inclusion by customers. Marketing can audit the posts and feedback to take the pulse of the company or the industry’s audience. But marketing was never set up to speak directly to customers. That’s the contact center’s job.
While marketing is busy sharing inspirational stories, photos and humorous reposts, customers or potential customers may be asking direct questions of the brand. “What time do you close?” “Do you offer student discounts?” They may also be complaining without a direct question: “I tried to visit your store last week but it was too crowded.” “My mother-in-law told me she had a bad experience.”
Customers expect to receive answers to their social media questions and complaints. A two-year-old study by Lithium Research found that 72 percent of people who post questions or complaints to Twitter (News - Alert), for example, expect an answer from the brand within an hour. With marketing departments running campaigns on a half-dozen or more social media brands, it’s unreasonable to expect that marketing will be able to handle the queries, comments and complaints these campaigns are generating. By looping the contact center into the social marketing campaign, brands can ensure that social channels are a true two-way experience for customers.
“Service providers can use social media to create and enhance the emotional connection that people have with the location by linking it to storytelling and its place people lives,” wrote Littleton. “They can create shared experiences and focus on the things that draw people together. It’s not just about posting dry service updates, but creating a community of customers who want to come back.”
If your social communications work only one way, however – company to customer – and direct customer queries or comments are ignored, customers clearly won’t want to come back.
Edited by Alicia Young