No one's listening

Organisations say they want customer satisfaction. The latest Dimension Data Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report shows 80.6% of organisations want it because they believe it is a differentiator.

However, a high percentage (47%) of companies are not changing their behaviour to achieve this new holy grail, which is illogical.

How can running a customer-facing operation in the same old way bring about a positive shift in customer satisfaction levels? Chances are, in fact, it'll be damaging to the bottom line.

Social media is a case in point.

In the days before social media, it was estimated that one unhappy customer would spread his dissatisfaction about an organisation to about 10 other people. Now, using Facebook, Twitter, or any other social medium, the same unhappy customer can negatively influence hundreds and possibly thousands of other people - in a matter of minutes.

That's the threat side of social media. The opportunity side is that more people want to use social media to do business with companies. Either way, there's no way to know yet to what degree customers will choose social media contact over other kinds of communication.

In 2000, when e-mail moved into the mass market, predictions were that it would replace customer telephone calls. In reality, 12 years later, e-mail accounts for only 15% of customer contacts with organisations. Speech recognition was also vaunted as the next big technology, but currently accounts for only 4% of all customer interactions.

So, the jury on social media's role in customer contact with organisations is likely to be out for some time to come. Does that mean organisations can simply ignore it? Absolutely not.

The essence of social media is response and reaction.

The most obvious reason is that if there is only one customer out there who would prefer to contact a company via his choice of social media and can't, that's a customer who can tell an incalculable number of people how old-fashioned and useless the company is.

Realistically, of course, there's never going to be only one person wanting to contact a company via social media. Why risk the negative publicity, customer churn and, potentially, a drop in share price when, in fact, it costs very little time, effort, and money not just to avoid it, but to turn public opinion in the company's favour?

A far more dangerous scenario is one in which a company simply puts up a Facebook page or opens a Twitter account and starts pushing out its own messages and agenda, without paying attention to information that is inbound from social media.

The essence of social media is response and reaction. Communication via social media is the ultimate in open-ended, inclusive conversation. As a consequence, social media have taught the man and woman in the street to expect to have a say and to receive an instantaneous response. People actively seek the interaction. They've also become much more communications savvy. They know when they're being patronised. They know that when an organisation talks but doesn't listen to them, they're being fobbed off.

For an organisation, being half-hearted about social media is far worse than ignoring them. The message the customer gets is: "We don't care about what you think or say." Hardly the best route to customer satisfaction.

The irony is that it takes only two or three people out of a 400-person contact centre to monitor the social media for company mentions and then to respond to them in a way that is appropriate to social media communication styles.

Yes, one does have to put a bit of effort and time into recruiting and retaining a different type of contact centre agent. One who can communicate effectively in writing and is also steeped in the various modes of social media expression. There is real skill in writing tweets and Web chats so they position a brand accurately.

However, acquiring this kind of agent is not a huge investment, given the disproportionately large payback in terms of positive perception that can be achieved through the extraordinary multiplier effect of social media.

Can any executive team afford to disregard such a simple, cost-effective tool for building the brand, expanding market share, and creating new revenue streams through loyal and happy customers?

In the end, it doesn't matter whether social media become the next big thing in customer satisfaction. What does matter is whether the executive team really does want customer satisfaction and is prepared to take the necessary steps to get it.

Social media customer channels are not about a new customer trend. They're about corporate strategy.