Customers now expect organisations to interact through social media

According to a recent onepoll survey conducted with 1,000 UK shoppers, over half the shoppers in the survey said that they expected companies to monitor social networking sites and forums as part of their customer service processes.

More than four in ten of the participants went on to say that they would be impressed by a company that responded to complaints made using these channels. This trend was particularly prevalent among people under the age of 34.

Due to the lack of any real alternatives, until recently the telephone was the sole means of customer service interaction. However as the communication tools available to people have become more advanced so to have the ways in which people interact, creating a number of potential PR nightmares for companies who fail to cater for their customers’ needs.

Spending 40 minutes on the phone or getting an email response two weeks later around a complaint is no longer acceptable. Today’s customer is far less trusting and brand loyal, if they have a bad experience they will simply go elsewhere and worse tell their friends.
The telephone no longer drives business communication; rather it plays a complimenting role alongside email and social media.

As a business focused on customer service having a call centre dealing with phone calls and emails will not suffice in the future. Successful companies need to be where their customers are, and if customers are spending 70% of their time on Facebook, then that is where they need to be.

This trend has already started to show in the BPO industry with international players like Stream and Teleperformance integrating social media into their core offerings.

One of the world’s leading brands, Dell has also realised the need to move beyond traditional forms of customer service adapting their communication strategy to align with their customer’s exact needs. As a global brand with a target audience spanning all age groups and cultures, Dell understands that not all their customers are willing to communicate via telephone or email. To cater for this, they have embraced the benefits of social media providing support via their Twitter account, Dell customer forums and instant messaging services.