In today’s digital age, virtually everyone is present on at least one social media platform, which is why it has become a common sentiment among consumers to lean towards brands that are more active and transparent on social networking sites than those that aren’t. Essentially, brand transparency is more important now than ever before. But what does this mean for contact centers and their frontline agents who serve customers daily?
While customers increasingly interact with brands via social media, it is often the marketing department that oversees social media efforts in many organizations. This has led to the disastrous consequence of contact centers bearing the brunt of customer frustrations towards a business’s lack of social media engagement or transparency, even though they have little to no control over it. Every brand is different, so changing this way of handling social media and bringing it into the contact center makes sense for many industries. Below, we explore the impact of empowering contact centers to take charge of social media and how it makes a difference.
1. Elevate your customer experience
As your team deliberates who to give the reins to when handling the brand’s social media, it may be tempting to stick to the traditional way of using these online channels solely for marketing purposes. However, many research findings suggest that when contact centers at least have a stake in managing this online presence, customer experience improves. After all, the shift to social media when reaching out to businesses for answers only grows with each passing year.
Whether social media management is outsourced, managed by the in-house marketing team, falls under the ownership of a third-party contact center, or some combination of the three, it is vital to ensure that the people servicing customers through your accounts use a consistent brand voice. All in all, contact centers are just as suited to provide the level of support your customers expect on social media because they have the manpower and technologies, like an omnichannel chat platform in Singapore, to do so without missing a beat.
2.Better employee experience
It is no secret that customers appreciate quick and convenient service. However, many organizations tend to overlook that their employees also want the same things in their work experience. In the frontline customer service side of things, receiving the brunt of customer anger is particularly frustrating and demoralizing. Therefore, contact center employees perform better and thrive when they are empowered with the means to serve customers to the best of their abilities. That often means trusting frontline agents to respond to your customers on other channels like social media.
Giving them a stake in social media management makes them less likely to deal with customers via email or phone about issues with the brand’s social media. Having the full picture of customer interactions eliminates the back and forth not just for the customers but also for the employees. This results in a more positive experience for your customer service and marketing teams.
3. Considerable cost savings
Business leaders typically focus on improving the experiences of customers and employees. Still, when changing the organizational structure, the C-Suite and finance typically often prioritize return on investment. In this case, there is a lot of compelling evidence why contact centers should handle social media, most importantly, it can save money.
According to experts, connecting customers to agents promptly not only saves cost but also generates revenue, even among businesses that are not revenue-generating. The reason behind this is the growing trend of customers using multiple channels simultaneously to seek faster response. Let us imagine that a business’s customer service hotline has a 20-minute wait, so customers will switch gears, head to their website, and enter a live chat queue. At the same time, they could also take to one of the brand’s social media accounts, like Twitter and submit an inquiry.
In other words, customers inadvertently pit the business’s channels against each other to save time. From a broader perspective, it is clear that a multi-channel approach can become costly for businesses as each channel requires individual handling and response efforts. This can quickly become a problem when social media is not part of the contact center as efforts are not only duplicated, but customer frustration may also increase when there is inconsistency.
Conclusion
As you can see,. Integrating social media channels into a contact center not only improves customer and employee experiences but also presents plenty of cost-cutting opportunities, two key factors that top a brand’s priority list.
Need help integrating social media with your customer service operations? Remego offers high-quality, value-added technology solutions and services in the contact center space, custom-made to your organization’s needs. Our extensive partnerships with renowned software companies put us in a good position to deliver cutting-edge innovations that can take your business to new heights. Contact us at (+65) 9299 6814 / sales@remego.com.
