Collaborative Customer Care

Below: Table 1. Comparison of Typical Knowledge Management Systems and Wikis

Relative to traditional customer satisfaction surveys, social media monitoring provides greater depth and clarity into what customers really think about you and how you stack up against your competitors. Their feedback is raw, real-time and all-the-time. They don’t confine their comments to the topics about which you choose to ask in your short after-call surveys or annual polls. Where feedback leads to insights and insights lead to improvements, you’ll know where, how and why to institute continuous improvements initiatives that deliver value for you and your customers.

When your analytics tool tells you that “the natives are restless,” the contact center has the opportunity to work with their peers in other parts of the organization to craft a response. For example, retailers typically experience an uptick in contact center traffic as anxious parents launch the search for this year’s “must have” children’s toy. A few well-placed posts about product availability can quell the rising storm and cut call volume during the peak calling season.

Finally, on an individual basis, the company has the opportunity to transform a negative rap to a positive spin by reaching out proactively to solve a customer’s problem—whether on a direct contact or a social media site. That person may be annoyed by having a troublesome incident, but the professionalism with which the company responds may yield a “thumbs up” in the final analysis.

Empower Customers and Employees to Help Themselves and Others

In the traditional model of customer support, the contact center and the company’s array of self-service venues are the central means through which customers ask questions, obtain information, provide feedback and/or resolve issues. This model assumes that the company has the “sharpest knives in the drawer” in anticipating customer needs/concerns and providing responses. Social media may prove this assumption false. Through forums, blogs, social networks and other venues, a “community” can generate its own ideas and solutions by “crowd sourcing” answers. Moreover, studies show that consumers trust peers more than they trust companies.