Currently it seems that all companies want to be in social networks. What they do not take into account is that it is not only worth being in, as a statue, you have to be and be dynamic. Companies must create good business strategies to collect the benefits of these new means of communication, so that the investment made can be justified. And how we do it?
It is clear that to influence and mark your own profile you have to start by talking and saying things, and if what we say, it is also interesting for our target audience, better than better. At the same time, but we must be able to listen to what our followers tell us or respond to our messages.
As a company, we want to know what they think of us and our products in order to improve our offer. If we listen to our clients, they will tell us what we can improve and what barriers or shortcomings we should eliminate. In addition, encouraging good comments and preventing or solving bad comments can serve as a tool to maintain or win customers. The key to the use of new communication channels is to participate and establish effective communication. In this way, to get the most out of social networks we must know what to say but above all, we must organize ourselves and train ourselves to listen.
Access to social networks is relatively simple. Opening an account is very fast, simple and cheap, so with little cost and in an artisanal way, we will be able to attend e-mails and tweets, and perhaps manage another channel. In a short time in social networks we will have realized its operation and dynamics, seeing that with its correct use, the return on investment is very fast. As time passes and the networks gain territory, we will see that it is very important to have some internal information system that helps our agents to find answers to the questions that arise. We need first mechanisms and monitoring circuits, as well as defining first metrics or indicators. In the meantime,
In the innovative projects in which social networks are contemplated, a preliminary phase of “exploration” must be considered that provides information and context, and that opens the way to the next phase of development and implementation. As the multichannel customer service is growing, we will see how the number of interactions grows, as well as its complexity. At this point, the treatment of interactions is no longer so trivial but we want to “die of success” so we must help the agents. How?
For example, with tools that promote productivity or with resources that help to quickly find the requested information and templates that facilitate the generation of answers (technically, agent script applications). Once we move forward, we will need reporting tools and statistics, so that we can have information for the future planning of our resources and be able to draw qualitative conclusions. And if things go well and interactions increase, it will be necessary to implement an automatic distributor of interactions to distribute the interactions following business rules. It is interesting to have several strategies for the different channels of attention, since each one has a rhythm and needs.
If we distribute the interactions based on agent skills, they can be attended by the most appropriate agents taking into account their “profiles” or “abilities”. In this way, we guarantee that each client’s request is treated with the best possible quality.
We see, then, that the integration of social networks in the strategies of companies is not only about “being in them” but about being, saying, listening, and responding. Companies can actively contribute to building a good reputation and curbing negative comments by turning critics into opportunities. For this, it is interesting that they invest both in people and in technology.