Multichannel Strategies in a Social World

The recent introduction of online social networks has arguably become the most disruptive and opportunistic new business practice of this decade. Today’s online channels serve as a public forum and thanks to the web, every interaction has the potential to become broadcast as one-to-many, for better or for worse. In fact, one of the fastest growing assets around corporations today is the amount of content, knowledge and brand promoters that have developed over social networks. Companies that are able to leverage these assets will be those best positioned for future success.

Customers Drive the Content
There has been a fundamental shift in the amount of external control that a company has over its brand, its service model and even the type and amount of product or service information that is available. In today’s social forums and online channels, customers are shaping the conversation outside of the boundaries of the enterprise, replacing scripted FAQs with their own questions – and their own answers. Companies must respond by reevaluating the manner in which they organize and control internal operations to focus on the customer rather than on internal functions.

We commonly see companies struggle to accomplish this as internal work groups have competing interests, and disparate information systems and platforms. But it’s an organizational imperative for these groups to approach the customer experience from a holistic perspective, from executive strategies and objectives, to contact center employee training.

Monitor and Engage
The first critical step in implementing a more effective multichannel approach is to become a participant in the social conversation and transparently serve as a guide representing your brand.. Companies need to ensure that employees have the expertise to respond to questions and are empowered to use existing company systems to provide answers in real time.

Creating Branded Communities
In addition to becoming an active participant in existing communities, significant opportunities come from creating your own communities, which allow for additional control of your brand, the ability to register users and track them through your customer relationship management (CRM) system, and also yields larger volumes of knowledge that can be tapped via advanced analytics programs.

Companies who create their own communities can more formally integrate their existing support systems with community conversations to better support customers and more efficiently apply learnings across channels.

Multichannel Knowledge
Another critical element of the emerging multichannel world is the ability to capture and organize knowledge from each channel. The channels within the company’s control are relatively straightforward to manage. But vast amounts of information are also created in the social space. This information creates a rich environment to help extend brand loyalty and reference selling, gather product feedback, uncover product innovation ideas and identify resolutions. This information must gathered and organized in a way that can be leveraged by companies for better customer support and revenue generation programs.

Complete the Cycle of Feedback
By investing in online conversations with customers and cross-channel conversations with internal parties, companies can not only offer a more consistent customer experience across all channels, they can actually see a significant payback.