Social media is a large part of how today’s society communicates with each other on a personal level, so why shouldn’t it play a role in how companies and their customers communicate?
According to a Coleman Parkes consumer study, 50% of consumers would like to communicate with their customers via social media, but 75% of these communication attempts go unanswered. Expectations are high though, a response within an hour is considered an acceptable timeframe to address issues raised through social media channels. Unfortunately, 80% of frustrated consumers end up calling into a call center for support when their attempts at social media contact get no reply. Think about the way today’s younger consumers communicate, it’s not by the phone.
Service providers seem open to using social media channels, but it will require some changes to the existing business model. Many people don’t use their true identity in social media, but that is required for a service provider to address issues. In order to have more than a generic reply come back, customers need to be willing to share who they truly are. The question is: are they? The Coleman Parkes study found that 64% would be willing to share their true identity in order to receive service online as opposed to having to go through a call center experience, which can sometimes be very lengthy. The exchange of identity is required in order to conduct a two-way interaction on the channel the customer initiates contact on until it’s time to move the discussion to a more private channel.
The benefit to the consumer is clear, but what about the benefit to the service provider? Because social media information is presented in a chat sidebar format integrated to their existing CRM tools, a call center representative can interact with up to six customers simultaneously. A 6-to-1 ratio correlates to a 10% reduction in call volume and a reduction in costs for the average call handled by 50% to 70% per Amdocs’ experience.
Amdocs offers a solution that allows operators to implement linkages among their existing CRM programs and social media in conjunction with social media monitoring tools. By collecting the social media comments from customers and filtering them for relevance to recognize those which should be addressed, the service provider can begin the resolution process via social media.
“Today it is extremely important for service providers to utilize all tools available to them to know their customers’ concerns about their services”, said Nibha Aggarwal, senior director of product marketing for customer management at Amdocs. “The integration of social media content with CRM tools allows service providers to integrate their customers’ concerns across social media in a consistent manner and determine appropriate next steps to resolve these concerns.”
On a personal note, I would be very happy to see more service providers implement tools to integrate their CRM and social media programs. Having wasted too many hours on long calls to a call center for something that could have been resolved in a few minutes of interaction, I would be happy to share my data. This saves my time and I’d feel as though I was experiencing a higher personal touch from my service provider.
