Customer service: Don't rip up the rulebook for social media!

Organisations don’t need to rip up the customer service rulebook because of the growing influence of social media – but they do need to deliver experiences on the channel that are consistent with the company’s other channels.

 

 

The 2011 findings of Convergys annual “Customer Service Scorecard” have reiterated the importance of effectively managing social media channels, with 76% of respondents who heard about a bad customer experience via social media refusing to do business with the offending firm.

 

 

Only by listening into social media channels can organisations identify and address the service issues to minimise the damage, says David Lopes, director of technology and business development at Convergys.

 

“This finding emphasises the fact that you need to listen to customers, however they are speaking or tweeting and whatever channel they are engaging with you,” he says. “You have to decide at a business level what is the best way to handle the customer and answer the query and then have the tools and people in place to be able to engage with them in a way that is most appropriate.”

 

 

He adds: “This is no longer about single channel of interaction. This is about taking all of these channels, viewing the experience from the customer’s point of view, and having the technology and intelligence to enable you to deal with that customer in a way that is appropriate for them.”

 

 

 

 

However, even with the emergence of new social media monitoring and interaction solutions, organisations need the right strategic approach if they are to capitalise on the enhanced level of customer insight across the channels. And the indications are that many businesses have a “piecemeal” or “siloed” approach to social media that undermines the customer experience.

 

 

“My belief, and one which is reflected by Forrester’s State of Customer Experience report, is that that the biggest problem is one of a lack of strategy,” says customer experience expert Shaun Smith, founder of Smith+co. “They come at it from a piecemeal perspective, whether it is buying the technology because the CTO or CIO is buying it, or whether it is marketing trying to use social media to buy more stuff or operations wanting to use those technologies to provide better support. Those are all valid things. But if they aren’t joined up it’s a problem.