Adrian Morgan, Business Applications Consultant - NSC Group
Remember the 90s – the time when email conversations were going to replace phone calls in the contact centres? The promises were made of thousands of emails pouring into the contact centre, replacing the avalanche of calls. The requirement to route emails, just like phone calls was all most of the providers could talk about.
And what happened? Realistically, very little in the way of traffic. Email in general still accounts for less than one percent of contact centre volume, with most centres receiving more paper correspondence than email. Emails are still processed the way they were then - slowly, with dedicated teams, no SLAs and little measurement.
Now in 2010 everyone is talking about social media and the importance of contact centres getting involved. The importance of routing social media transactions; the importance of scale. Does all this sound familiar? Is social media the 2010 equivalent of email?
The cynics among us sit back and smile smugly remembering email. The early adopters jump in trying to be on the leading edge. And the rest of us try and make some sense of it.
Where do I sit? Well I see social media as very different from email. The main reason is this conversation is happening whether you like it or not. In many instances, it is the conversation that goes on in the coffee shop, around the barbecue and at the water cooler. Only this time, you are invited. You can eavesdrop and hear everything everyone is saying about you. And you get a chance to respond and listen.
Social media is inherently open. Anyone with a computer can participate and it can affect your brand. There are major social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. There are blogs for everything from coffee, to customer service, to getting through IVRs. Then there are the up and coming new location-aware applications - Foursquare, Yelp, Gowalla.
Do people listen to them? You bet. If I'm in a new town, I'll look up restaurants, coffee shops, anything I want to do on Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook. I'll see what people are saying on blogs; what reviews have been written and then make my choice. And I'm far more likely to trust a blog than a review in a magazine or newspaper. The last five restaurants I have been to were all on http://www.melbournegastronome.com and got positive reviews. If Claire says stay away, I do.
And it’s not just me. There are literally thousands of people tweeting about their purchases, updating Facebook status messages about what they have bought or asking questions about which providers are good.
On Facebook, I have around 150 friends (a small number by current standards), LinkedIn around 190 connections and on Twitter about 450 followers. In the past year, 18 percent of these have asked a question/made a comment about a product, service or experience. It may be as simple as a shout out asking how is my iPad (answer ? awesome, buy yourself one), to as complex as which bank do people use and why? I have read complaints about mobile providers, dissatisfaction with a utility provider regarding their latest bill and a poor experience at a top Melbourne restaurant.
Now, given the numbers here, multiply that out by the 4 - 5 million Australian Facebook users and it should be evident there are masses on conversations going on of which you could be part of. A 2009 study of Twitter 'tweets' demonstrated at least 20% of tweets talk about a product or a brand and attaches a sentiment - good, bad or ugly. Twitter has 50 million tweets a day, equating to 12 million per day talking about brands.
Now, you might think social media is outside your customer demographic, but I really doubt that. If we look at Facebook, the largest growth among Facebook users is the over 55 market. Twitter is similar. Of course, growth doesn't reflect numbers of users, but with Facebook having 680 million users, there will be users in your demographic integrating Facebook in their daily lives.
Most discussion regarding using social media begins in the marketing department. They use it to first monitor their customers and then sell to their customers before realising customers are using it for different reasons. Marketing are used to a one way conversations, but the customers talk back when you are on Facebook. They talk back at you when you are on Twitter and if you've started advertising on foursquare, how do you answer those tips? How does the organisation prepare itself for the onslaught of social media?
That's when it generally gets handed over to the contact centre. After all, it talks to customers -right? And that’s where contact centre managers find themselves. Suddenly, there is a new channel to manage; new business skills to integrate into the contact centre. But as well trained as your staff is, is it social media hip?
In part two of this discussion, we will look at using social media for customer service.