Budgets for social media are steadily increasing and all the analyst predictions say that 2010 will be the year of social media marketing. It doesn’t take Confucious to know that marketing and social media are a cost effective alternative to traditional marketing. What’s notable is the move to incorporate customer service as part of this plan. Traditionally, marketing and service are very different parts of a company. So different that marketing and communications are primarily inside-out focused (messagin starts inside and gets pushed out) where Service almost always carries an outside-in (customers call in to interact) perspective. You can see some of the consolidation happening on the tools side (recently Exact Target aquired Cotweet) which often leads to consolidation within companies. Beyond the social tools, communications vendors are getting into the action as well with Unified Communications platforms that manage phone, email, video, social, etc.
If social customer service is consolidating with marketing efforts then who owns customer service now and is customer service gaining importance at the executive level? These are important questions especially as Comcast’s CEO, Brian Roberts announces that Twitter is changing the culture there. This statement makes us think about the possibility of customer service with a much different influence within corporations.
Think about the process of setting up social media at any company (listen first, then engage…). Just break down listening into it’s parts like monitoring for prospects, existing customers, brand mentions, competitors and detractors. This includes duties normally performed by marcom, service, sales and public relations, yet one tool can be used. So who takes charge, who’s accountable for “listening” at a company, let alone responding/engaging?
Next, at a time when companies are reducing headcount, can service departments possibly respond to the dozens of new social channels in addition to traditional phone calls, emails and sometimes chat? In order to fully understand the breadth of what affects social might have within an enterprise, we must understand if social actually adds to overall inquiries or if an increase in social inquiries decreases traditional inquiries. As companies discuss scale and social, they need to include people, hardware and software considerations to evaluate the true impact to the business.
Finally, companies have been dipping their toes in the social media waters for the past 2-3 years. When Mr. Roberts talks about how social efforts have a significant impact on a large company’s culture, you have to start thinking about your social efforts with a bit more foresight and structure than short-term, dis-continuous campaigns. To prepare a company for such an initiative, they need to consider long term strategies, systems integrations, employee buy-in….or do you? What are the entry points that a company needs to prepare for to begin to shift to a culturally infused environment?
How can we possibly work through this topic in only one hour you might ask? Luck for us we have “Famous Frank” or Frank Eliason from Comcast this week to moderate this topic.Frank has lead Comcast’s social efforts with a focus on service through Twitter that has made him world famous. Frank brings first hand experiences and answers to all our questions and more. Usually you would have to have a very serious problem with your Comcast service to be able to spend an hour with Frank. Today, we will have the opportunity to learn and share our collective experiences in managing a socially enabled customer service department. The topic this week is as follows:
Topic: Customer Service’s Role in Social Media
Q1: Is Social Media converging the roles of Service, Marketing and PR, if so who owns it?
Q2: How do you scale customer service in social media?
Q3: How do companies prepare for social customer service?
Join us at 12 noon EST on Tuesday March 9, 2010 for one hour. The first question will come out at noon and then at 12:20 and 12:40. To participate or simply follow along, tune into #sm50 on Twitter or just go to our LIVE page for a richer experience.
