Stirring Social Media Into your Support Channel Mix

Do you have a social media presence? A multi-channel platform that customers can use to connect with you?

Nearly a third of respondents to a survey by Supportindustry.com (2010) plan to increase their use of social networking (30.3%), leaving only 38.2% with no plans to use it. This means that 2011 will be the year that a majority of firms will have some level of social media as part of their support channel mix. Do you fit into these percentages?

Social media poses its own challenges. It is media where your employees are acting as spokespeople when they post or respond to issues on your sites or on others, with no opportunities for ‘do overs.’

What can you do? Be sure that your employees check on these networks. When they find that the brand name is being mentioned, they can then step in and offer comments and solutions to problems.

When employees respond to the queries and comments posted by customers, it translates into a goodwill gesture. Customers feel privileged and special. Maybe you’ve even had this experience, though I would suggest it’s the exception rather than the rule.

In not so good news, a recent ICMI Study reveals that 64% of respondents didn’t know if, or when, a customer tried to self-serve but then opted for a live person.

There is no better way to kill a customer’s experience than having information silos in an organization. A customer’s information and interaction history across channels should be seamless and available to each department. Otherwise you risk making the customer repeat information he or she has already provided which is very frustrating to say the least.

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For example, have you ever received an offer to purchase a product you already have? Have you ever been offered a special upgrade discount for a product you don’t own? Have you ever called technical support and answered the same questions countless times as your call is passed from one customer service agent to the next? Have you ever been treated as if you were unknown to the company, after having called on the same issue three times during that same week?

This frustration and time wasted eliminates or even kills customer satisfaction and loyalty, two things in today’s marketplace that should be sought after by all companies.

Yet, here are the statistics (according to Human Technologies Global) on how many applications it takes to access customer inquiries. As you can see the majority of respondents reported it took 2 – 5 applications. Only 3.7 percent took only one application.

Number of applications required for agent to access customer service:

3.7% Just 1

81.5% 2-5

7.4% 5-10

7.4% More than 10

From the customer’s perspective, their interaction across the contact center is one experience, so be sure it is not broken up when they navigate across channels. Do not create silos.

Create a consistent, seamless experience across all channels for today’s customers. Unfortunately many companies are plagued by channel silos. This makes creating an enjoyable, cross-channel experience difficult, if not impossible.

Channels should

1. share one view of the customer
2. have unified customer experience principles
3. allow easy escalation between channels

Here’s the good news. With a single customer view, you can improve customer service, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty and at the same time eliminate inefficiencies. You can also position yourself for higher growth and profitability for the future.

If the reports are correct, 65% of your business comes from its current customers. Therefore, in order to stay in business, the number one focus should be to win the satisfaction and loyalty of those customers.

After all, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression regardless of the touch point.