In April we posted a video on YouTube as I wanted to share my thoughts on the looming economic recession and the tremendous opportunity social media can play to help navigate through it.
Getting social is imperative for brands in terms of marketing but that just scratches the surface of a larger opportunity that companies should be driving toward. Through customer care centers, many companies are off-shoring their customers by outsourcing their call centers. As reported by MediaPost yesterday, consumers hate offshore call centers and “are nearly twice as likely to recommend the company to others if they think the contact center is in the U.S., while they are three times more likely to defect if they believe it is based offshore,” reports the Contact Center Satisfaction Index.
Social media provides a fundamental opportunity to create jobs here by getting companies to realize the importance of managing their relationships on Facebook and Twitter. It is time to take social media out of the back room and put it in the board room as we need to rethink the way we are embracing our customers.
Companies that will win will be those that develop one to one relationships with their consumers.
Social media can be a disruptive innovation that helps our economy improve and grow as it can create real jobs for real Americans.
In the future, I believe functions within a company will blend as social media pulls together the functions of marketing, customer service and sales. Some companies are starting to think this way and the call center is evolving to include social media.
An article earlier this week from InfoWorld also reinforced this with stats and commentary from a report released by Datamonitor “The Rise of Social Networking and Emerging Channels in Customer Service”. Analyst Ian Jacob’s points out “Social networks will not be a flash-in-the-pan craze and will not simply disappear or burn themselves out,” he said. “Companies that choose to simply ignore this trend will relegate themselves to the outdated, fuddy-duddy camp--an important distinction depending on a company’s desired demographic--and more worryingly, maybe even to obsolescence.”
I couldn’t agree more and as mentioned earlier this month, 2009 has become the true inflection point for social media as consumer adoption is mainstream.
Consumers are actively engaging with brands and telling them their issue, their suggestion, their complaint, their endorsement.
Brands need to be there - listening , responding and cultivating relationships one issue at at time like all call centers do.
