Can social media help to enhance efficiency? To achieve the same results with fewer resources? To achieve better results with the same resources? To maintain or even enhance customer satisfaction levels while investing fewer resources in operations? Learn how social media affects operations in a client case study with sound results.
Figure 1: Touch-point Experience across the Customer Lifecycle – Using
A big IT firm specializing in customized software experienced a decline in customer satisfaction in general and an increase in customers sharing their negative experiences with the customized software online. In order to turn the tide, I advised them to go out on the web and solve the issues as soon as they appeared, rather than waiting until customers approached the firm with their problems.
Together with the communications department, I identified three main areas that needed to make this change. First, they needed to discover the conversations that were going on about their products, services and brand. Second, they had to think about how they would participate online. And third, they would have to require collaboration between departments that weren’t collaborating at the time.
To make sure they were able to find the conversations about their brand, products and services, they invested in professional tools and hired experts to set up the monitoring and reporting necessary to gain ongoing insights. The monitoring is real-time and validates whether the conversation was effective.
Since their standard approach to customer service already included interacting with customers, we used the existing customer service processes and modified them for online interaction. Also, I helped them to decide which issues they could handle via social media and which issues should be handled via the traditional channels (phone, letters and offices). Based on their processes for online behavior, they were able to participate in a consistent way with a group of customer service agents, plus they ensured scalability as soon as the volume of mentions went up.
This organizational change was a collaboration between customer service, marketing and public relations. The online team is part of the customer service department and solves customers’ problems; they need to be in close connection with public relations to validate what can and can’t be communicated with customers and in close connection with the marketing department to share customer feedback and to integrate their activities.
By turning online complaints into online conversations, they managed to increase positive mentions online from 34% to 73%* while the volume of mentions increased, resulting in an all-around positive customer experience and an increase in new customers.
Figure 2: Social Media and Operations
This document “Social Media under One Roof: Integrate Social Media with the TCE Model” is composed of nine sections. Three sections are written by Sampson Lee, and experts in each specific domain contributed the other six sections: Wendy Soucie from Wendy Soucie Consulting; Karl Havard from pownum; Jim Sterne from Web Analytics Association; Axel Schultze from Xeesm; Rick Mans from Capgemini; and Guy Stephens from Foviance.
Section ONE: Where Social Media meets Customer Life Stages
Section TWO: Social Media and Research & Development
Section THREE: Social Media and Branding/Public Relations
Section FOUR: Social Media and Marketing
Section FIVE: Social Media and Sales
Section SIX: Social Media and Operations
Section SEVEN: Social Media and Customer Service
Section EIGHT: Integrating Social Media with Total Customer Experience
Section NINE: Managing Your Brand and Social Media with One System
Click here to read the complete document in PDF format.
Footnote:
* These are sample figures due to the confidentially of the information. However they indicate the increase both in relative as absolute figures.
