Can Social Marketing Save Customer Service?
Multi Channel Merchant — According to a March, 2009 Forrester report titled “The State Of Service Provider Customer Service”, the number of services offered by “service” companies is increasing, while the amount of money they are able to spend on customer service is decreasing.
Yes, lower cost channels such the Web, e-mail and instant messaging have offered some relief but many of the new “outposts” are poorly designed and often result in greater frustration than waiting in long phone queues.
To that end, there is a new breed of customer service that’s starting to evolve and it’s riding in on a white horse called “social.”
Yes, you may have heard of this phenomena, as it’s come in the form of support communities, third-party sites like Get Satisfaction and now through social networking darling, Twitter. The big question, however, is can “social” customer service help, or even potentially save the corporate function known as customer service?
Before we get too far down a path, we should discuss why customer service is arguably more important than ever.
For starters, so many products and services have become commoditized, other than price – which is not an insignificant factor. Customer service is one of the last things left that differentiates one company from another. Do it poorly, and your customers will leave.
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