If you aren’t already enforcing a solid social media strategy for your company, then these statistics might persuade you – 1 in 3 individuals prefer social media customer care to more traditional channels like telephone and email. Over 67% of consumers use social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter to find solutions for product- or service-related issues.
About 20 to 40% of them spend more on companies that engage with and respond to their customers on social media, while 70% have stated that they have used social media for customer care at least once.
The demand for first-rate customer service on these networks has created a surge in social media customer care jobs, the majority of which is outsourced to offshore hubs like the Philippines.
With customer expectations at an all-time high, what can BPO companies do to meet their demands?
Offer personalized customer service
BPO companies must optimize customer engagement at each step of the customer journey. This will enable them to create a complete profile of the customer, which in turn makes it possible for them to identify pain points, channel preferences, behaviors, values, and so on. They should also analyze all interactions agents have with customers, identifying areas for improvement and retaining key information.
This ensures that customers receive prompt but adequate answers to all their queries through their preferred channel. This creates the impression of personalized attention, which is likely to increase overall customer satisfaction.
Devote resources (and human capital) to social media customer care
Customers expect to get real-time support on social media given the fast-paced nature and sense of immediacy characteristic of social networking sites. Despite this, however, it takes an average of 12 hours for about 80% of social media responses to reach them – a far cry from the average waiting time of just 56 seconds on the phone.
In order to meet customer expectations, BPO companies must dedicate a great deal of their resources and talent to social media customer care. They must allocate enough trained agents to handle requests on each channel 24/7 and create a much better experience for customers.
Invest in training
Managers should offer continual training opportunities to employees if they intend to maintain a team of competent and dynamic agents. Not only does this keep agents’ skillsets and knowledge up-to-date, it also helps them grow and feel satisfied with their work environment.
There are numerous ways to improve employee performance, from agent scorecards
and speech analytics solutions to the use of optimization software. Companies can also offer financial incentives to drive agent performance.
Agents can be evaluated on the basis of social listening and sentiment analysis, as well as their ability to turn negative social media mentions into positive ones.
Create a single view of every customer you service
Traditional interactions within call centers are straightforward and easier to track, but
social media channels often yield more data and information than BPO companies
are aware of, and much less track or analyze. This is why creating a “single view” of the customer is difficult for more companies. BPO companies can face this challenge with a combination of both specialized expertise and technology.
