Mike Hennessy, Vice President, Marketing, IntelliResponse
Social media can be a perilous field for brands to navigate. Many companies have begun to adapt to the widespread adoption of social media by offering customer service options on social platforms. Forrester reports an 11% increase in social customer service in the past three years.
For all of social media’s popularity, offering a customer service option via social media can be a misguided approach. Social media is an effective communication channel, but it can be a dangerous broadcast channel, especially when a company’s reputation is involved. In many cases, customers take to social media to publicly announce their dissatisfaction when they have received poor customer service via a company’s web site or call center. This is a risky scenario for companies: when customers are conditioned to complain on social platforms, these grievances have the potential to go viral and damage the company’s reputation.
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Several major retailers have had trouble managing the onslaught of negative comments that assail them on Twitter. According to recent research conducted by The Next Web, brands like The Gap, American Eagle, Foot Locker and Abercrombie and Fitch have dedicated representatives who respond to social customer service complaints, however, they generally cannot keep up with the sheer volume of negative feedback. Over the course of the week long study, only 13% of users’ complaints were addressed at all and when brands did respond, they often took a long time — in some cases, more than 50 hours. Even the best performers made basic social media mistakes, such as not responding to customers over the weekend. When complaints are not addressed in a timely manner, they fester and result in even more frustration on the customer’s part.
It is expensive and time-consuming for brands to manage social customer service, but the even larger problem with negative feedback on social media is that it erodes a company’s reputation. In the long term, a smarter and more effective solution is for companies to redirect customers away from the public forum of social media when they have a grievance. The way to do this is by making the company’s own website or call center an efficient alternative. By improving the quality of service on these owned channels, customers will realize that they will be heard and taken seriously when they bring their questions and complaints directly to the company.
Research from the Corporate Executive Board reveals that 77% of customers first turn to the company website when they have an issue that needs to be resolved. As many as 57% of customers end up on a live phone channel after they have failed to find the solution to the problem on the website. It is therefore imperative for customers to focus on beefing up the quality of their web and contact center customer service. In fact, to take this logic a step further, it can be very effective to integrate online self-service data with the contact center knowledge base so that data is effectively shared between both systems. When customers experience a long hold time, receive inconsistent or incorrect information, or are asked to wait while service representatives look for the right answer, it adds fuel to the fire. Customer service agents can do their job better if they have the tools and information they need to swiftly find the answer that customers are searching for.
The key is to diagnose the root causes of customer grievances, which often arise on the website and contact center first. This will allow companies to avoid the domino effect of complaint escalation. In other words, if customer questions are answered quickly on the web site, customers don’t feel the need to call the contact center. Less traffic to the call center generally results in shorter hold times. Less frustration with web and contact center based customer service channels will result in fewer social media complaints. Companies can avoid reputational damage caused by negative feedback on social media by fixing issues at their source, so consumers do not feel the need to take to social channels in the first place.
Mike Hennessy is the VP of Marketing for IntelliResponse, a virtual agent software provider. He oversees all aspects of IntelliResponse corporate marketing, including demand generation, brand strategy, corporate messaging, advertising, public relations, and partner marketing.
