CrowdControlHQ ‘s Michelle Leavesley looks at Mastering management issues around social media in contact centres.
Mastering management issues around social media is fast becoming a priority for business leaders in all sectors. Here are five ways to manage social media effectively with a capital “M”.
1) Back to Basics
To understand the nature of social media it is important to find out how audiences respond to the content provided. What do they like and what do they dislike about the content? It is worth revisiting the trends associated with social media accounts and evaluating the ratio of outbound content versus inbound customer service queries.
2) Choose the Right Channels
Organisations should check whether their social media channels are providing the right environment for the right audience. For example, many business-to-business (B2B) companies report that their Facebook pages are less about customer engagement and more about supporting their websites through advertising and promotion. Whereas at the opposite end of the scale business-to-consumer (B2C) brands are finding an increasing number of customer service enquiries being posted on platforms like Facebook, raising the issues of response times, transparency and in some cases, crisis PR.
There has been a drive in the UK to rename “customer contact centres” to “customer experience centres” as more social media customer service representatives are appointed to manage the influx of inbound activity. Many public service organisations, including the police,are responding to the public demand for contact via different channels with social media being integrated into emergency 999 centres. Therefore, be sure to focus on the right channels for your audience.
3) Stay Safe
The recent cyber attack on Sony was one of the biggest security breaches of the decade. It followed “the snappening”, a security breach of Snapchat which left many teenagers too embarrassed or shy to seek help, as well as the webcam security breach, allowing hackers to see right into the heart of British homes. It is not just big brands that are suffering unwanted attention. Businesses need to review security to protect themselves not only against hackers but also from security blunders caused by well meaning, if misguided employees or brand advocates.
4) Effective Collaboration
There are many ways to increase reach and improve social media effectiveness, with one of the most important being collaboration across internal teams. As customer service enquiries increase, response teams can experience severe growing pains. In one example, a customer service enquiry linked to a leisure centre swimming pool on a Sunday afternoon ended up taking nearly two weeks to resolve and generated 17 emails across 8 members of staff.
The problem arose because there was no clearly defined route for the query and the delay in response resulted in the customer turning to the press to vent their frustration. The inbound query should have been automatically forwarded to someone who was on duty that weekend with a protocol in place to respond appropriately.
5) Analysing Social Media
Too many social media managers are still being evaluated entirely on the number of followers or page likes rather than engagement and effective reach metrics. Having a top end modern social media risk management and compliance platform in place enables teams to really sharpen the focus and impact of social media activity. Analytics can provide strong return-on-investment (ROI) information, helping to secure additional investment and resources as well as highlighting what is working and what is not in the day-to-day delivery of social media.
Additional Information
Michelle Leavesley – CrowdControlHQ
For additional information on CrowdControlHQ visit their Website
