As we move deeper into the 21st century, the term “call center” is becoming less and less accurate as a way of describing the arena in which your agents are operating. Contact center is the preferred moniker, and it’s the more appropriate name, as customers are often choosing to reach out to agents via chat, text, Facebook and Twitter – all service paths supported by today’s evolving suite of call center applications, software and solutions.
To best handle these constantly evolving methods of communication, it’s important that your contact center utilize a premium monitoring solution that combines social media listening with social customer relationship management (CRM) and customer interaction.
In fact, a recent aggregated infographic from Business2Community points to the statistic that 21 percent of businesses that offer social media services do not utilize any tools that could monitor social conversations.
This gap between what is being offered by a contact center and what is being utilized can cause more trouble than you might imagine. If contact center managers do not have monitoring tools in place to keep up with activities and inquiries on Facebook and Twitter, it’s no different than if your call center remained vacant during regular working hours with no one answering phones.
A study by Edison Research asked the question: “How soon after you contact a brand, product or company on social media do you expect to receive a response?”
Forty-two percent of respondents said that they expect a response within one hour. Segmenting that group further:
· Nine percent of respondents expect a response within five minutes
· 11 percent anticipate a response within 15 minutes
· 12 percent expect one within 30 minutes
The right monitoring tools will enable your agents to keep tabs on any of these incoming social media inquiries, making sure that every customer attempting to reach your company through any number of channels will receive a quick response, rather than being kept on hold via social media.
