In a session at IQPC’s Call Center Week recently, Tish Whitcraft, senior vice president of customer experience and operations at MySpace, talked about social media and its impact on customer experience. Her observations in bold below:
#1. Increasingly, users will go to their social network to get help rather than going to the company they bought the product from. My thoughts: This can make it difficult to ensure customers get accurate information about a product or brand. (Shameless plug for RightNow: Cloud Monitor and Customer Portal Syndication Widgets can help with this)
#2 Today, the multi-channel customer experience actually means the online, contact center and social experience; this is in contrast to the old definition of email, phone and chat. My thoughts: Last year I helped write a white paper, titled Harnessing the Consumer Revolution, around this topic. The paper asserts, “…It is these three experiences, when executed well, that drive revenue and sustainable competitive differentiation.”
#3 Consumers want to use the Internet to help themselves. My thoughts: The data proves this to be true. At RightNow we conduct an annual survey with Harris Interactive; according to the 2009 Customer Experience Impact Report:
- 62% of consumers online who have ever had a problem researching a product/service or with the product/service itself go to a company/brand’s website to find information
- 12% of online consumers said they would prefer to interact with an organization in an online forum
- 43% of online consumers use a search engine (e.g., Google, Yahoo!) when they have a problem
#4 You can use the social web to rock your customer’s world. My thoughts:Also from the 2009 Customer Experience Impact Report and reported in USA Today, 58% of consumers said if they had complained about a bad experience with a company on a social networking site, such as Twitter, they would like the company to reach out directly and respond to their comment. This is something we’ve seen Comcast do [see: Social Media, Customer Service & Comcast] and is a tactic Tish says they are using at MySpace.
If you are interested, here are a few highlights from Tish’s presentation at the Las Vegas event.
