As organisations embark on building a multi-channel contact centre strategy which includes voice, email and web chat, the social channel is starting to emerge as an important channel for contact centres. Voice will still be the largest channel in the contact centre space, but more organisations are pressured by customers dictating how they prefer to communicate about a service or product through social networking. That means some customers may not contact an agent or write an email, but rather post their own video, join a forum and receive real-time updates when engaging with the organisation. In a recent Frost & Sullivan survey, over 30% of CIOs and IT managers stated that social networking is an important element in unified communications. More vendors in the enterprise communications space will acquire social networking organisations in the next 12 months, particularly the vendors in the areas of unified communications, CRM and contact centre. As organisations embark on deploying a multi-channel contact centre strategy, it will be important for agents to have a single desktop view of the key channels in customer care such as voice, email, web chat and social networking. One of the vendors that have made strides in this space is RightNow Technologies. The company acquired an enterprise social networking company, HiveLive, in 2009 and recently released its CRM suite targeted at engaging customers who are using the social web. The solution is intended to allow companies to monitor social networks for commentary about their products and services, including monitoring RSS feeds. The tool also allows organisations to create a knowledge base that their customers are then invited to comment on or link to. Other major vendors in the contact centre domain are also expected to announce offerings in this space, where social networking will be a part of a contact centre multi-channel offering. Five reasons to embrace social networking 1. Product Development/Marketing Customers have more options today and not all customers will contact an agent to talk about a product or service. Some customers will choose to join a forum on sites like Facebook, or make a statement on Twitter or YouTube to get the immediate attention of the organisation. A few years ago in the UK, Cadbury decided to discontinue selling one of its chocolate bars and said that it was frequently contacted by consumers asking for old favourites to be reintroduced. The number of consumers that joined the internet campaign to re-launch Cadbury Wispa was unprecedented, and feedback on social networking sites garnered the immediate attention of senior management, prompting them to re-introduce the chocolate bar. 2. Notifications During the outbreak of a virus such as H1N1, updates and notifications by government departments and healthcare organisations on such events can significantly reduce call volumes to the contact centre. During the recent chaos in the travel industry due to the volcano ash, Twitter could have been an effective channel through which to disseminate real-time information on flight details and weather updates. This reduces calls to the contact centre, as well as queries on websites and email channels. 3. Sales DellOutlet has been one of the biggest success stories amongst big companies using social media. DellOutlet is a Twitter account owned by Dell that tweets out major discounts for its products. All of the deals on DellOutlet are Twitter-exclusive. By joining Twitter, customers can click on a link or download coupons that will allow them to receive discounts on products and services. This is an example of how social media can increase sales and branding. Organisations that embark on this strategy can deploy Twitter as a sales channel for a particular product line and have their other agents sell different products via the contact centre. When planned well, this can have significant impact on increasing revenues for a company.4. Problem Resolution By deploying social networking tools, you can also make your customers your ‘agents’. For instance, by having a collaboration forum on Facebook or Twitter about how a product can be used, what issues exist with the new release and how they can be fixed, customers are providing all the answers and helping other customers solve their problems. Again, that can potentially reduce call volumes to the call centre and also reduce emails to the contact centre. This will also drive innovation for future products and services. 5. Resolution Social networking can help generate sales for an organisation as well as differentiate its service against competition. Virgin in the US recently announced that it was using Twitter to announce sales and promotions on flights to Toronto. Virgin America gives details on its Twitter promotion on its webpage by indicating it will be giving out 50% discount codes for itineraries of two guests to the first 500 people to book a Virgin America flight through Twitter. That is a perfect example of a company increasing its branding and customer base via social networking. The impact will be huge, as friends of friends on Twitter will forward such messages about promotions and discounts, and that will generate a new base of potential customers for the organisation. Additionally, by opening up the social media channel, organisations can differentiate their service against competition. Building a social customer strategy An organisation will need to develop a special pool of agents or experts to answer Twitter or Facebook queries and postings. This could be contact centre agents or just experts that work outside the traditional contact centre domain. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) will need to be set around metrics such as average time to respond to a social networking request, time spent on the request that generated sales, etc. Authority and responsibility on who should respond to social networking interactions must be planned well. For instance, decisions should be around whether the customer care team should be responsible for social networking, or if this should be in the hands of the marketing and PR teams only. Measuring and monitoring the success of such a channel is also critical. Many organisations have seen this strategy fail due to not having the right experts respond to social networking feedback in a short duration. Responses will be considered ‘old’ even if they are attended to within two days. Measuring the success of this can be done by deploying applications that track number of fans, visits, followers, subscribers, etc. and that will give you an idea of the activity generated in this space. A successful social networking strategy around customer care will have dedicated experts who can answer requests 24/7. The upside is tremendous Social networking is growing very fast, and the numbers speak for themselves. Understanding social media as a customer care channel is critical, and companies that choose to ignore this channel will not be able to fully explore further ways of sharing information, collaborating and disseminating information with customers, as well as increasing sales in some of the examples mentioned in this insight. When organisations talk about creating a multi-channel contact centre strategy and to allow choice for customers, it means opening up every single possible choice of contact, and that should include social networking. Planning on managing this channel has to be well thought about by the customer service, PR and marketing teams, and there will be an overlap of functions in terms of roles and responsibilities that should be streamlined properly. When deployed well, this can be a good marketing and brand-building exercise for the company, as well as helping reduce costs and call volumes to the contact centre. It also helps increase sales, and allows for online collaboration that solves customers’ queries without the intervention of an agent. Regular feedback and collaboration through the social networking channel will also drive innovation for a company’s products and services. Audrey William is the Research Director, Australia and New Zealand, ICT Practice, Frost and Sullivan.