Social Media in OmniChannel Contact Centers

Just when Contact centers were starting to get act together regarding multichannel mix of phone, IVR, email, chat and SMS, somebody goes and piles Social Media on top. I know many contact center professionals are tired of the hype surrounding social media’s impact on customer care; there is no denying that our industry is facing a game changer. This is not to say that social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube have turned contact centers completely upside down, but such sites are altering the rules of customer contact enough where organizations that ignore these channels place their brand and customer loyalty at significant risk.

We’re looking at much more than a passing fad, Google gets 3 billion searches a day and Facebook gets 2 billion searches a day. A large volume of interactions are coming into organizations directly via social channels. Increasingly, customers who start in a traditional servicing channel, such as a contact center, are turning to social media if they do not receive the response they want. These consumers skirt the traditional service channels, finding that their issues are likely to be addressed more quickly by "going social," because companies fear social media's ability to turn a small problem into a viral PR disaster. In a study conducted by the Society of New Communications Research (SNCR), 59% of respondents said they regularly use social media to "vent" about their own customer care frustrations - a pretty frightening finding (to corporations) when you consider that 72% of respondents said they used social media to research a company's reputation for customer care before making a purchase, and 74% choose to do business with companies based on the customer care experiences shared by others online.

As the primary customer touchpoint for most organizations, the contact center is the obvious choice for taking charge of and carrying out an enterprise’s social media strategy. The challenge is that most business have let Marketing have the Social Media and they sort of do a great job because they know and understand the importance of brand protection. However Marketing might be best to keep an eye out for new Social Media on the public side but need to flip the conversation to a Facebook messenger or Twitter DM and let the contact center keep up with their servicing strategy where it can be handled consistently and recorded properly.

Contact centers must acquire a true OmniChannel Solution with A.I. to properly respond to Social Media and like email, chat and voice recording – push that contact history to their CRM. Contact centers can embrace social media to get closer to customers, spot trends, identify influencers, and create customer advocates, but they must align with social media norms and have faster response that reflect an understanding of the norm of these Social Media sites.
Embracing Social Media in the Contact Center

1. Executives: Social media is proving to be a game changer in business and customer support. Enterprises that ignore this new channel and the impact it has on customer advocacy do so at their own peril. Senior managers need to provide marketing with the proper Social Media Monitoring tools and the Contact center with True OmniChannel technology it needs to continuously keep its finger on the pulse of customer sentiment within social networks, and to effectively engage customers and solve issues via the new media. 
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3.  Directors/Managers: Leaders in the Contact center are charged with defining the specific role the center plays in managing this critical new channel and developing new strategies and initiatives to ready itself for the emerging social media challenge. Such processes and programs as agent hiring, training, workforce management and quality assurance must be carefully analyzed - and altered, where necessary - to ensure success in the social media environment. And certainly an OmniChannel solution will be implemented. 
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5. Supervisors: The often unsung heroes in the Contact center, supervisors play an instrumental role in converting all the social media talk and strategy into action. This includes getting agents ready for the new role; helping agents to continually improve via coaching; and keeping staff engaged and motivated during this challenging transitional period. In addition, supervisors will be called upon to assist with such higher level processes as technology selection and customer satisfaction measurement and management as it relates to social media interactions.