Bridging the Gap Between Customer Service and Social

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Frustrated by long hold times and unanswered emails, today’s customers are increasingly turning to social media to connect with a brand’s customer service department. For consumers, however, dissatisfaction still remains. In one study, 56% of consumers want a response on social media within 30 minutes; yet in another, two-thirds reported they needed to reach out at least twice to get a response. Companies need to invest in tools and integrations to prioritize these conversations and support their customers. 

Recently, Rob Begg of Salesforce and I spoke with executives from varying industries who had one common goal: to put their customers first and embrace social customer service. Today, I’ll share with you two trends we discussed for bolstering your social management, enriching your case management process, and driving a better customer experience. 

How Customer Service Leaders Are Going Social: 

1. Decentralize social media management. 

It used to be that social media management was owned exclusively by the Marketing or Corporate Communications teams; the amplification of the company voice was limited to a select few. Today, organizations with strong social presence and high engagement know that different customer posts aren’t always best answered by a marketer. The best organizations utilize a robust social listening platform that automatically flags which department should handle which social post. 

For example, if a customer posts a complaint about a product, a customer service ticket would automatically be generated and assigned to a rep for response and resolution. If a customer posts a complaint about a competitor, a salesperson will receive a notification to follow up and talk about how their organization differentiates itself from competitors. Companies must consider integration and automation of their social management to create the best customer experience possible. 

2. Integrate social data with sales, service, and marketing data. 

More organizations are looking at social data as a way to provide a more complete view of their customers’ behavior across channels, sales cycle velocity and opportunity influences, customer engagement, and more. Organizations need to invest in dashboards that integrate social behavioral data with relevant Sales, Service, and Marketing data about a particular customer. 

Social media was critical to Bluewolf client Vodafone’s service model. They extended their core customer experience to include social media channels along with phone and email — integrated and rebuilt into a single platform using Salesforce Service Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Aimed at addressing the needs of customers in their channel of choice, Bluewolf outfitted Vodafone with the power to track trends, unstructured data, and queries in multiple channels while also improving customer brand perception and sentiment, driving a 25% increase in resolution rates and an 800% increase in content quality ratings.

To learn more about how to improve your contact center, take our Customer Service Quiz and get a free copy of 10 Ways to Improve Case and Knowledge Management. To speak with a Service expert about evolving your social media practice, connect with us today.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Janine Carlson
Based in Singapore, Janine Carlson is a key member of the Asia Pacific leadership team. She sets the overall marketing strategy for Forum's Asia Pacific operations and ensures its effective implementation, including brand building, lead generation, thought leadership, public relations, online marketing, and events.

1 COMMENT

  1. I agree, yes and no. Your point about responding to tweets is a little aggressive. I am not sure customers who complain about a competitor want to be bothered by a salesperson. That would actually be more of a turn off than anything else.

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