Ludwig Micallef

 

Customers are demanding. They want excellent service, and they want it promptly.

The expectation of customer service via social media has grown exponentially over the last two years, especially in B2C industries. In fact in the US social media interaction between B2C companies and their clients has grown to reach email and phone interactions to form a triad of support modalities.

It is interesting to note that whereas when sending an email clients have historically allowed a period of grace of between a few hours to a day before they receive a reply, their expectations on social media are more immediate. In fact research in the US has shown that 42% customers who use social media to ask for support, make a complaint or simply communicate with a B2C company expect a response within 60 minutes.

The reality, of course, is that most companies are not equipped to handle such requests within an hour. This has the danger of leading to client disillusionment and ultimately anger, potentially unleashing a tsunami of complaints on a company's social media presence.

Therefore as more and more consumers turn to social media as a source for customer service, it has now become essential for businesses to be readily available to meet the needs of their customers online.

"Traditional customer engagement channels, such as the telephone or email, will not disappear. However, there will need to be a formally structured, multichannel mix within the contact centre, allowing for social media engagement tools." - Hype Cycle for CRM Customer, Jenny Sussin, Gartner.

The only way for companies to deal with this new challenge is to integrate all customer contacts coming from phone, email or social media into one channel that reaches its customer support agents in a seamless way.

This will enable contact centre personnel to service customers across all channels of communication, replying to complaints, requests and suggestions from their customers promptly whatever channel the customer chooses to use.

Collab's One Contact solution for contact centres ensures that any post on Facebook or tweet on Twitter is automatically delivered to the Contact Centre, while complying with all established distribution rules, supervision and monitoring criteria. The agent receives all notifications from the

activity on social networks directly on their console and he or she can quickly reply to all questions/

issues, and can attach images or links if necessary. All previously built routing scripts can be reused. For instance, the rules for skills based routing used for e-mail or chat sessions can be directly applied in the channels covered by One Contact Social Media, as well as all the "routing blocks".

There is no doubt that whether your company is ready for it or not, customers will try to communicate with you using social media and they are noticing and remembering if they received a timely reply.   If the right tools are in place it is possible to ensure that your customers receive the valuable support they demand from your brand on social media, without any major burdens or challenges for your team.

Collab's One Contact solution is a multimedia contact centre software solution, offering complete and integrated communications management for contact centres, including voice, video, email, instant messaging and social networks. For more information, you can contact Alert by visiting our website on www.alert.com.mt or +356 2060 1234

 

Ludwig Micallef is the General Manager of Alert eBusiness, local resellers of Collab Communications solutions. www.alert.com.mt

WWW update

FCM Bank launched a new brand identity, logo and responsive web portal to portray its business as Malta's best straight-talking bank.

The FCM Bank website is responsive and adapts to various screen sizes including smartphones and tablets.  It also has an online calculator, cool animations as well as an interactive savings tips and FAQ's section. 

www.fcmbank.com.mt

For more WWW updates go to www.alert.com.mt