When Comcast announced it would be increasing the size of its social customer service team, it was viewed as a small improvement for a company facing numerous customer service complaints in recent years. However, Comcast is late to adopt social customer service practices. Recent research from Aberdeen Group shows that the use of social customer care programs rose from 12 percent in 2010 to 59 percent in 2013. By paying more attention to their social media platforms, companies can better monitor negative customer experiences and quickly engage in the conversation before it spreads widely. This also helps them guide unhappy customers to the right channels for resolving their issues.
At least in theory.
The problem for many companies with poor customer service reputations is that by the time the customer gets to social media, the journey is often already irreparably broken. They head to Twitter or Facebook to vent their frustration and get attention from the company when all other channels have failed. Instead of investing more heavily in their social channels, companies should instead work to build out the channel as part of their broader customer engagement strategy.
Prevent broken journeys by integrating your channels
Rather than building out their social channels, companies should be focusing on resolving customer issues along the customer journey as effortlessly as possible. The [24]7 Customer Experience Index shows that most people, 64 percent, go to a company’s website first to get information to help them resolve their issue. When they can’t complete the task, they move on to other channels and devices which is where the problems can really begin. As customers turn to the phone, chat and email to look for answers, companies run the risk of growing customer frustration if the channels are not properly integrated.
This lack of cohesion can lead to a broken journey if information on a customer’s interaction is not maintained as consumers cross to different channels, from the website and live chat to IVRs or virtual agents. If they don’t get the answers they need on any of these channels, the customer could be forced to start all over again, creating a vicious cycle that drives them to social media to take out their frustrations. In fact, the [24]7 Customer Experience Index found that 15 percent of customers will ultimately head to social media as the 5th channel of engagement. When these channels are not integrated, there’s a good chance that the social channel is also not integrated, leading to the possibility of yet another broken journey. By ensuring that customers experience “one digital channel” no matter where their journey begins or ends, companies greatly reduce the risk of that unwanted interaction that goes viral.
Connect self-service with assisted service
In today’s digital world people want to be able get answers to their questions as effortlessly as possible. That means being able to solve their problems and find answers to their questions through self-service. However, recent Gartner research says 55 percent of all interactions still require human assistance or assisted service. If a company turns its focus to social, it should consider that as another assisted service channel that needs to be connected with self-service. If an unhappy customer on social media is directed to a self-service solution that does not carry over context from previous interactions, it only increases the possibility of another broken journey.
Make them advocates
Rather than trying to head off potential viral situations on Twitter and Facebook, companies should instead be providing the type of exceptional customer service across all channels that drives customers to share positive stories. When customer advocates are engaged online, brands experience a powerful direct sales push through the sharing of recent purchases, experiences and recommendations. In a day in age where people are increasingly taking to the internet to share stories on each side of the extreme, companies want to make sure they’re on the positive end of that spectrum. You need only look at sites like Yelp to see the effects that reviews (both positive and negative) can have on a business’s reputation.
In the end, it’s not about putting more effort into one channel, but investing more in all the channels to ensure they’re properly integrated. This will only increase the odds that customers will log on to social media to become advocates instead of adversaries.