Why a Major Telecom Sees Social Media as Essential for Customer Service

A frequent question during Call Center IQ’s Social Media for Customer Management Summit pondered the extent to which the marketplace truly demanded social media as a customer service channel.

Because of the inescapable reality that a significant pool of potential and existing customers is using social media, many social media advocates have been able to convince their companies of the value of monitoring. Many have also had success pushing for social marketing initiatives

But what about the push for social media as a customer service tool? "Social CRM" and "Social Support" sound compelling on paper, but do they really offer advantages over phone, in-person or text/email/chat customer care? Do customers care enough to make the strategy worthwhile?

Major Australian telecom Telstra is so confident in "yes" answers that it launched an aggressive campaign to tout the availability of social media as a customer support tool.

Having recently noted that its customer service endeavors were falling short of objectives, Telstra announced via its executive digital director’s blog a massive expansion to its social customer service approach.

The initiative includes extending the hours of its Adelaide-based social media support team to 24/7/365, launching a customer service channel on its Facebook page and introducing a user-based support forum called CrowdSupport. In addition to the blog post, Telstra touts its new service offerings as a major selling point on its home page.

Why go so big with social media customer service?

[eventPDF]

For starters, Telstra has found that a sizable chunk of its audience is inclined to seek online support after normal business hours—20% of Tweets to the company, in fact, are posted outside that customary business window. Social customer service, therefore, could not be sufficient without providing an extended support window.

In most cases, that inevitability exists even for those companies who cannot track such a large portion of Tweets to non-business hours. If a major motivator for using social media is to engage customers and manage discussion about the brand, companies have no choice but to play by their audience’s rules. Customers rarely feel an obligation to restrict their social complaints to 9-5, Monday-Friday—limiting the ability to respond to those hours could be crippling.

The Facebook initiative stems from the reality of the network’s prominence—Telstra loves using Twitter, but a far greater percentage of its market is on the Zuckerberg network. Bringing its live chat and ticket support to Facebook is tantamount to bringing service directly to the customers.

"We’ve given customer service its own Facebook page, with features designed to provide customer service right there and then without leaving your favourite social space," explains the blog post from digital director Gerd Schenkel.

What Telstra doesn’t mention, but what all customer management strategists know or at least should know, is that hosting customer support on Facebook presents immense CRM benefits.

Notably, the Telstra Facebook page presents support-seeking customers with the opportunity to "Like" the brand. Since Facebook users receive updates from brands they "Like," the network offers the ability to continue communicating with customers even after their support issues are resolved. Achieving this from a traditional ticket or chat system is far more difficult and far less effective.

Facebook, in theory, also gives Telstra a better opportunity to collect feedback from customers. Telstra’s customer support team is now located conveniently in one of the places its audience feels most comfortable online, likely improving the chance it will hear from customers who found the idea of calling to share their concerns prohibitively inconvenient. Since the Facebook page doubles as an online community, the network also gives Telstra a direct, high-impact ability to fuel customer discussion and gain valuable insights.

CrowdSupport enables Telstra to better identify, measure and influence brand advocates (or detractors), since the forum focuses on users helping other users. Since there isn’t much "reward" for users who provide assistance, the concept attracts customers who are not indifferent—thereby giving Telstra a front-row seat to evaluate the mentalities of those who either love or hate the brand.

The crowd component also provides Telstra with a dimension for measuring the efficiency of its overall customer service platform. By monitoring and comparing the complaints, questions, support issues and feedback are conveyed on the user board to those transmitted directly to the customer service team, Telstra can better understand how to structure its customer care function.

The case for Telstra’s social customer service initiative seems fairly compelling. But when the company sits down and analyzes the results, it is imperative that it overlooks the "social media fallacy" that risks plaguing so many companies who are eager to maximize Facebook and Twitter.

For the reasons above, it is probably a safe bet that Telstra’s initiative will spur increased customer advocacy and produce more efficient, more diplomatic customer support engagements with users. The effort would also be hard-pressed not to deliver valuable and relevant customer insights.

Those behind the strategy, therefore, will likely see enough evidence to confidently pat each other on the back.

But in gauging the success of social media specifically as a customer service tool, it is important to measure the product’s impact on the actual customer service goals it hoped to attain.

In assessing its efforts to improve customer service, Telstra revealed that it missed its goals for increasing customer satisfaction and for reducing customer complaints. In order to be deemed successful, the social media effort must prove valuable in better-reaching those goals.

For all the value social media inherently provides, those advocating for its status as a full-fledged customer service channel need to be mindful of what determines a successful customer service strategy. Social customer service efforts should not only bring social media benefits—they must also provide customer service benefits.

Find this article helpful? Are you committed to improving your social media strategy? Check out CustomerManagementIQ's star-studded Social CRM Go Live conference, featuring speakers from Verizon, Foursquare and Domino's!