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INTEGRATING SOCIAL MEDIA INTO CONTACT CENTERS 

By now, most organizations know that customer service has grown beyond the traditional call center and into the realm of social media. In fact, social media has fundamentally altered customer service forever—from engagement to response times to capturing insight into support issues. But what steps do you need to take to incorporate social media as a core component of your overall contact center strategy? 

Fortunately, with thousand of companies adopting this strategy, a bevy of best practices have been garnered. To that end, here are 10 key things your organization should think through when incorporating social media into their contact center:

1. Identify the Right Social Media Channels

It’s critical to know exactly where your customers are choosing to communicate. Is it Facebook? Is it Twitter? Is it LinkedIn? As a first step focus your attention and resources on the sites where your customers frequent most.

2. Familiarize Agents with Different Social Channels 

It may seem unnecessary, but just because someone has heard of Twitter or Facebook doesn’t mean they have used it. And if they don’t use it personally, they probably need help learning the ‘language’ of a particular channel as well as how to provide customer service on that medium. 

3. Select the Agent Model

Specialist or generalist? There is no right answer. While some larger companies find it necessary to create dedicated agents, most contact centers may field agents that handle social media interactions alongside voice, chat and email.   

4. Offer Simulation Training

Simulations or role-playing exercises are helpful for everyone: trainees can experience an actual interaction, so they can learn the steps, the information they will need, where to find that information, and most importantly gain confidence with the process. It’s also helpful for the brand and trainer to see where someone may need extra help, where more information is needed or where another step should be added in the training process. Whether it is a single session or a series, simulations provide repetition. And as well all know, practice makes perfect.

5. Establish a Brand “Voice” 

Whether it is “all business” or casual and friendly, set the standard for agents. Remember that agents should be consistent with the voice but need some flexibility. If not, all interactions run the risk of seeming canned and impersonal—and that could make a customer think they are interacting with a bot. 

6. Develop Best Practice Guides

Establish a “best practices” resource that agents can access quickly for reference. List basic phrases or responses that can be copied and pasted (and customized). There will be some best practices that are standard no matter the channel, while others will be specific to a channel. For example, an agent needs to keep responses short on Twitter, while a longer response is possible on Facebook or live chat—samples of each kind should be included in your best practices.

7. Provide the Right Tools For Agents 

Handling customer interactions across multiple channels isn’t easy. Be sure that your tools provide a central desktop for agents to engage with customers. Make it easy for agent to respond to voice, web chat, email, or social media interactions without having to switch applications. 

8. Focus on Quality Control

Quality and consistency are especially important with public interactions. Extend your QA process to social interactions to ensure that your agents are providing the right kind of support and service during customer interactions. This should include having a manager review a sample of agent-customer exchanges during a set frequency and then providing feedback/coaching if necessary.

9. Invite Social Users to Other Channels 

Not all customer issues and concerns should be handled publically. For many contact centers, social channels supplement but do not replace traditional contact channels—especially on truly urgent issues or when an issue is too complex for short text responses. Develop guidelines to help agents determine when they should extend an invitation for customers/ users to interact one-on-one via email, chat or phone. 

10. Close the Loop

Even if the interaction is taken “offline” due to sensitive personal information, it’s important to wrap it up on the same channel where it started. By closing the loop, anyone who was following the interaction will be able to see it was resolved, thereby heading off potential issues. 

These are 10 things to keep in mind as you embark on incorporating social media into your contact center. To learn more about contact center best practices, please visit LiveOps.