How does social media impact the contact centre and visa versa? An overview of why every business needs to integrate these functions and some tips on how to do so well.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA & THE CONTACT CENTRE:
How do they fit?
Cara Pring | May 2012

2. WHO AM I?
CARA PRING
 5+ years marketing/media/comms/events experience @carapring
cara@thesocialskinny.com
 3 years dedicated social media experience – worked at
www.thesocialskinny.com
Bupa, Qantas and now Servcorp + contract work
 B Media & Comms / B Arts Enviro Resource Studies at
University of Wollongong
 Started www.thesocialskinny.com in January 2011
 Slightly obsessed with travelling and animals
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www.thesocialskinny.com

3. Quick Question
Q. How many of you are using social media to some
degree at the moment (in your business)?
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4. What social media should look like within a business
HR/Recruitment Customer Service /
Contact Centre
Corporate Affairs
INTEGRATION =
Marketing
SOCIAL MEDIA Insights/Market
Research
Customer Exp. Online Team
Communications
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5. Reality:
HR/Recruitment
Marketing
Insights/Market
SILOED = Research
SOCIAL MEDIA
Customer Service /
Contact Centre
Online Team
Communications
Corporate Affairs
Customer Exp.
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6. The result:
 Customer-facing staff unaware of social campaigns/comms
 Social team is unaware of customer issues/insights from frontline
 Proper customer processes are not established
 No feedback loop
 Inconsistent customer experience and information disseminated (esp. during crises)
= Angry, annoyed and/or confused customers and staff
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7. Always remember...
your customer
your customer service team
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8. Why social media is so awesome
 Speed to market (esp. during a crisis)
 Personable nature helps people like you
 Lower ROI
 Better customer experience
 Brand management!!
+ heaps of other reasons .
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9. Managing brand reputation via social media
Good practices
Bad practices
 Address all complaints in rational &  Deleting/ignoring negative comments
helpful manner
 Be understanding and humble  Being defensive, abrupt or
 Gain insights from conversations and argumentative
use it them to improve your business
 Abandoning social when things get
 Put the right processes in place to fix tough/crazy
problems fast
 Using corporate speak
 Make sure your staff are properly
trained  Responding in an ad hoc fashion
 Have a crisis management plan and  Not communicating across the
response framework in place business
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10. So where should social media sit?
 Not a straight-forward answer as it depends on the company
 Often it is put where best resourced
 Strategy should not sit within customer service, unless purely cust service focus
 May be best to have two teams (this is what we did at Qantas)
 However, ensure there are good communication processes
 Weekly meeting involving all internal stakeholders across business
= Best resource + strategic direction/focus + budget + politics will determine answer
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11. Social media meets the contact centre
 Lower call volumes
 Increased customer satisfaction (better experience)
 Competitive advantage
 Position company as modern/innovative
 Develop real relationships with customers in personable platform
 Up-skill staff (staff retention benefits)
 Public endorsements/positive PR opportunities
 Internal comms opportunities
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12. Getting your customer contact team involved
 Detailed training
 Collaboration
 Detailed guidelines and Social Media Policy
 Reporting processes
 Success stories and progress updates
 Mine their ideas and insights from interacting with customers day in day out
 Get story ideas for content
 Involve them from the very start and make them feel like they are part of it
 Recruit social team from current staff (if possible)
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13. The implications and last few words of advice...
 Keep CC staff fully informed about everything – from marketing strategy to
crisis comms
 Customer service must be consistent across channels, however can be more social on SM
 If you’re going to do social CS, make sure you are going to be responsive & positive
 Prepare yourself and your team for negative posts/tweets & have process in place to
address
 Be aware of customer privacy and confidentiality issues
 Have fun with it and build real relationships with your customers!
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14. Questions and Contact Details
Email: cara@thesocialskinny.com
Website: www.thesocialskinny.com
Twitter: @carapring
Facebook: facebook.com/thesocialskinny
LinkedIn: Cara Pring (pretty sure I’m the one and only)
YouTube: youtube.com/carapring
You can also find me on Pinterest and Google+

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