The next paradigm shift for the contact centre industry may well be how to engage with customers through social media. It is definitely on the minds of many of our members and our suppliers, who are quoting extraordinary statistics which compel us to take notice:
- 120 million Linkedin members
- 750 million active users on Facebook, each with an average of 130 friends
- 200 million Twitter users who together tweet 200 million times a day
But what do these numbers mean and how will it affect our business? Does it present new opportunities for us to engage with our customers and are there consequences if we don't?Perhaps a good starting point is to develop a better understanding of what social media is and how it is different to the other communication channels that we have traditionally been using.What I've heard about social media is both exciting and daunting. The opportunity to attract your target audience in large numbers, following your every word with the obvious spin-offs for sales of your products and services. However desirable this may be, it is very clear that just building social media channels does not mean you will attract and engage your target audience. In fact, you could do the exact opposite if you become successful and are not resourced to respond within their expected timeframes.Social media is not just another channel for outbound marketing; it is not the same as television, radio, newspapers and magazines. Companies cannot simply use interruption marketing tactics to put their organisation's brand, products and services in front of consumers with the hope that they'll be enticed to buy.With social media, your customers find you – not the other way around.We need to develop a voice for our organisation that is interesting, conversational and one that our readers will identify with. We need to develop content that is attractive to readers and their search engines. We also need to talk to them about the topics they're interested in, in a way that will naturally lead onto our products and services, without directly promoting them and turning our readers off.Like any other communication channel, we need to develop a social media strategy and ask ourselves the following questions:
- Why do we want to use social media channels?
- Who is our audience and how are they using social media, if at all?
- Who are our internal stakeholders who need to be part of developing this strategy?
- What does our audience want to know and how can we link that to our products and services?
- When are we going to publish content: how frequently?
- How are we going to resource the ever-increasing demand for quality content – if we are successful?
Communicating out is only half of the equation. We need to have processes in place that measure the attention we're getting, identify what topics are of most interest, pick up their inbound comments and respond to them promptly.We also need to recognise that our consumers have social networks of friends, families, colleagues and followers who can be reached in an instant through a few keystrokes. This has implications for our brand, how we resolve customer issues and whether we wait for that inbound customer contact to say there is a problem or whether we actively search the virtual environment for negative comments about us or our products.If successful, we will develop a close, meaningful one-to-one relationship with our target audience, which is surely well worth the time and effort.
