Social Media is a powerful tool in disseminating information. It is quick, sensational and unconventional. All major organizations are paying close attention to it to further sales and marketing. Contact center technology solution providers are trying to bring social media channel as a part of the multi-channel Unified communications. This is more so with CRM providers who hope to effectively capture a social media profile of individual customers using various tools.
Inbound contact center service is about resolving customer service issues. Voice telephony channel and E-Mail channel are still the most effective way for problem resolution due to their inherent structure. Social Media conversations are unstructured and do not find immediate application in Inbound Customer Service channels.
In the past decade, direct telemarketing has used Predictive Dialer for mass contact on a one to one basis. This contact center channel has been used effectively for marketing and sales. We know that is possible to influence customer buying decisions through Social Media. Does this present an opportunity for marketing without the need to engage every individual potential customer one on one? If so, how is this different from the conventional marketing advertisements? Are we loosing the opportunity to engage the potential customer directly?
Contact center software can present an opportunity for organizations to observe and influence on-going discussions in Social Media but the anonymity is a double edge sword. In most social media discussions, the accuracy of information is questionable and anonymity inducts cynicism. Therefore conducting organized marketing for immediate sales is a challenge.
It is quite early to say how the social media channel will be standardized within the contact center software.