Monthly Newsletter

Online Newsletter for Call Center Personnel
Rosanne D'Ausilio, Ph.D. Editor and Publisher
Volume XXII, Issue 2

Date: February  1, 2011  - Social Media is Still A Challenge

Does your organization have a social media presence, whereby customers may use that platform to connect with you?

Nearly a third of respondents to a survey by Supportindustry.com (2010) plan to increase their use of social networking (30.3%), leaving only 38.2% with no plans to use it. This means that 2011 will be the year that a majority of firms will have some level of social media as part of their support channel mix.  Are you in the percentages here?

However, social media poses its own challenges.  It is media where your employees are acting as spokespeople when they post or respond to issues on your sites or on others—with no opportunities for “do overs”. 

Be sure that your employees check on these networks. When they find that the brand name is being mentioned, they can then step in and offer comments and solutions to problems.

Reputed brands monitor Twitter and solve problems that customers rant about. This gets service kudos from customers.

When employees respond to the queries and comments posted by customers, it translates into a goodwill gesture.  Customers feel privileged and special.  Maybe you’ve even had this experience.

However, on the other hand, in an ICMI Study, 64% of respondents don’t know if or when a customer has tried to self-serve but then opted for a live person.

The caution here is: Don’t create silos where one touch point isn’t aware of the other.  The rate of new channels being created and adopted by customers creates a significant challenge for many companies.

You must create a consistent, seamless experience across all channels for today’s customers.  Unfortunately many companies are plagued by channel silos. This makes creating an enjoyable, cross-channel experience difficult, if not impossible.

Channels should:

1)    share one view of the customer

2)    have unified customer experience principles, and

3)    allow easy escalation between channels

If as has been reported, 65% of your business comes from its current customers, in order to stay in business, you best focus on winning the satisfaction and loyalty of those customers.

After all, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression regardless of the touch point!

 We love to hear from you. Please email me rosanne@human-technologies.com  your comments, feedback, questions, your own experiences, or topics you’d like to see covered in future newsletters.
 

© 2011 Human Technologies Global, Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.human-technologies.com