There is much talk about corporations getting onto the social bandwagon. Marketing often or usually leads the quest with customer services in tow. While the possibilities of engaging customers, potential customer in the social web and spreading your marketing story may seem like a good idea and may even work, can a “social service” actually be delivered on current platforms by the current contact centers? Continue Reading…
Tag Archive - Designing
Social Service in the Contact Center – is this a good thing?
Just fix my problem
Ran across this post from Tim Stevens and his rant about service being provided by service centers.
http://www.leadingsmart.com/2011/05/i-dont-want-to-press-1-for-english.html
He has a few points which are typical of the problems which still effect our service centers everywhere (his examples are from the US but I see the same around the globe). Now whether it is good business in the US to prompt the caller for their preferred language or not isn’t my interest. I have customers where more than 8 languges may be serviced and customers are typically accustomed to this process.
There are two people involved here, the caller and the agent handling the incident. Each of them need to have been provided the proper information to do their part. The caller deserves to be informed of their call state, how long they may have to wait, asked to provide certain information while waiting assuming this will speed up the handling of the issue. The agent receiving the call must have all this information at their fingertip as well plus; has this caller called or contacted the center recently for a similar or same issue, how long have they been waiting and perhaps what else might they be looking for which was not found.
The cost of inactivity will rise.
Now in 2011 this is really not rocket science. Back in 2000 when the method of the day was CTI (basically poor grade glue) clients were excited every time a call transfer actually sent all the collected information along. Today more integrated systems and the advent of SIP have removed the need to apply this “glue” but it is not being applied often. Clients who will pay dearly to have their cars repaired will not pay to fix their broken customer service systems. The “cost of inactivity” is a phrase I picked up from a wise person not long ago. Calculating that cost now in the world of social word of mouth communications is going to rise.
Photo credit: Danilo Rizzuti
Social Media in a Customer Service World
New channels of communications – are here!
My professional world is probably described as Business2Business2Customer (B2B2C) consulting. I work with organizations in designing, improving, replacing or expanding their B2C relationships (sure there are also B2Bs there too). In my world, everyone is a customer but the B2B relationships are defined a bit differently.
Recently, the subject of Social Media has become one of the hottest subjects in my discussions with my clients. It almost reminds me of the dot com days in the late 90s when everyone needed to get on board for fear of missing the ship. Now, many but not all of my clients are already dabbling or are quite advanced in their Social Media endeavors and others wait wondering how to “get it right”. Well, I tell them to not wait and try to perfect the solution but to get there now! Their customers are there, they are commenting, looking for assistance, giving assistance to each other and at times flaming you.
Tools are there to help manage the flow and filter through the wash to find those raisins which need or require attention. But applying the right amount of brain power to find those is still not perfect. Till I ran across the Watson story from last week and this blogpost from No Jitter.
No Jitter: IBM’s Watson and the Potential for Social Networking
Dang it Watson! I hit the button too late.
This will be a very active area in the next 12 to 18 months as corporations are all clamoring at engaging their customers at the right time. But until a Watson is available to everyone we just need to get busy and get to work.
Many have a tough time just peaking past the hype. The stories of how those sites will just steal your identity. How big brother is just watching all this. This is no reason to not be out there and at listening to your customers or those who are talking about you. Let engaging in conversation be another phase in your Social Media strategy.
Do you have a Social Media Strategy? Do you think you need one?
This is not rocket science
So, how to get past all the hype around social media and the networking going on and get these new communication forms into your business? This is the task I have at hand almost every week. Once you can identify the channel, be it Twitter, Facebook or others specific to your industry, you can use many of the tools already on the market (many free to start) and begin filtering out those raisins. Here is a blog post by Paul Dunay which reviews some of the currently available methods.
http://pauldunay.com/monitoring-vs-analytics-infographic/
But once you have the raisins in a row, there are a few questions which come up:
- How do you action on them?
- Who should reply?
- When should you reply?
- Is this a call center’s task or should it remain in Marketing/Sales?
These are important questions which need to be addressed and roles clearly outlined. If your company has a contact center of sorts, my first question is; do they handle email today? Is it part of an intelligent workflow? Is there some kind of distribution system to handle bursts of traffic?
Twittering with your friends is different than with your customers
Hopefully there are a few yes’s in the bundle. If you have email in some fashion of automation then bringing Social Media contacts/mentions into the scheme is actually pretty easy. There are a few players out there making this possible (yes, including my current employer) but it is important that the tool does not just fix the Social Media challenge. There are many new rules which need to be taught to those handling this and norms as well.
So, what rules are there for companies to follow when engaging with their followers/friends/customers in the social space? What new norms do we need?
Looking forward to the conversation.
Andrew
–FreeDigitalPhotos.net–
Resistance to Collaboration
Why do some people resist collaboration?
In my 25 years of working with professionals from around the globe I have had my share of good and some less than positive experiences when it comes to sharing. Today we call this and the art of working together collaboration. Some of the groups I have been engaged with spread the globe and include many different cultures and languages but along the way technology has enabled us to “get closer” and gather our ideas and watch them grow.
Over and over I have observed or felt that there are people who resist in one way or another. Who hold back what they are capable of doing and this has kept me thinking, why resist collaboration? This is a point I have been gnawing on for quite a while and feel slowly, that I am coming to a few conclusions.
There are plenty of people who are afraid of the technology
This is in many branches a shrinking group. technology is becoming all the more accessible and easier to handle. be it a chat tool, email or a smart phone application. this is in my world no longer an excuse.
Some do not want to share
These are those folks who abide by the old school. hold on to your knowledge, it will protect you. gosh how many people thought that as their jobs went off shore or were transferred to robots. what you know today is little use the day after tomorrow. get over it.
Others want to hide
So many people are in roles they are really happy with but know they hardly belong there. got there through whatever means and want to keep the calm. when asked to share they feel threatened, attacked and bunker down.
Some have a private agenda
This seems to be a curious group and the hardest to identify. they need to belong as they are there for the ride. there is a path they are following which may not be obvious but it is planned. they need the help of the group to advance but are focused on their objective and nothing else.
So, knowing this helps us how? It let’s us better understand peoples motivations and their fears. This is important for moving past blockages in team work. Our world will become more and more “virtual”; teams will be formed of members from across regions and continents. This can provide the best possible situation for maximum results – if the collaboration works.
