Call Recording Featured Article

When Mark Zuckerberg (News - Alert) started Facebook it was intended as a hub for college students to communicate. Jack Dorsey created Twitter as a result of his fascination for dispatch software. Neither had any idea that their innovation would lead to a customer service revolution years later. The omni-channel contact center is no longer a nicety but a necessity as the millennial generation continues to blaze their trail and baby boomers begin to take hold of what technology can offer; the customer service landscape is turning in a very “social” direction.

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Marketing Director, CSI (News - Alert) Rich Marcia and he echoed much of the same. Social media is front and center as a disruptive force, the question “Is your contact center ready” requires a resounding yes or be prepared to face the consequences.  Below is an excerpt from our conversation.

TMC (News - Alert): How much of a focus should businesses place on social media?

Rich Marcia: From a contact center perspective, more than half of incoming customer messages are from social, so you’d better have a plan in place to respond. SMBs don’t need a Chief Social Officer or anything, but they should have staff who are trained to respond to inquiries on Twitter (News - Alert), Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. From an enterprise perspective, having an entire department dedicated to social monitoring, response and branding is important. From a marketing perspective, SMBs should at least have a prominent, frequently updated Twitter account. Enterprises should manage multiple social network accounts with consistent branding and integrated messaging across all media.

TMC: Is social media monitoring necessary? Is customer service the perfect use case? Why?

RM: Contact centers need to monitor their social accounts and keep a pulse on keywords used so they can respond accordingly. There are a ton of applications out there to use, ranging in price and complexity. For a starting point, try Social Mention which is an excellent way to learn about brand mentions and interactions in an easy-to-digest visual format. Just type in the name and click Search to see the links to your mentions – Sort by timeframe or source. Also, find your brand’s strength (how often it’s being discussed), the passion of the posting (how likely someone will repeat the mention), the sentiment (positive to negative) and the reach (measure of influence). Learn the top keywords, users, hashtags and sources as well. For additional resources, credit Social Media Examiner for the reference. On the marketing side of things, you can track keyword phrases which when mentioned indicate people you might want to connect to or “follow”. For example, if anyone uses a #CustomerExperience in their posts, I want to connect with them. Hashtags are powerful – and used across multiple platforms to categorize similar or trending posts.

TMC: How do you decide what to monitor? Prioritization?

RM: From a #CustomerService perspective, you’ll want to look out for any brand mentions, product mentions, or competitor mentions. Different tracking campaigns for different purposes: for example, competitor or industry mentions can be tracked for research purposes, while anyone who uses your company name or product name might be trying to contact you. Same goes for marketing, almost similar to how we target keywords from an SEO perspective. It’s all data which can be analyzed for actionable insights. For our customers, Virtual Observer can be used for social media monitoring as a way to evaluate and report on social media interactions.

TMC: Is social media the future of engagement?
RM: Social media is now. The omni-channel contact center is real. The platforms we use will be ever-changing, consolidating, and develop narrow focused audiences like SnapChat, which is aimed at a younger audience. SnapChat’s differentiator, the disappearing posts, was knocked off by Instagram, which is owned by Facebook (News - Alert), who also knocked off Periscope (owned by Twitter) with their popular Facebook live video monitoring. SnapChat is in danger of losing relevance, but businesses who target the younger generation may still want to engage there.

Only time will tell how this story ends, but one thing is abundantly clear: social media is set to play the role of lead antagonist today and for the foreseeable future.