Social media is gradually pushing, cajoling and challenging companies to redefine, re-evaluate and at times re-engineer the way in which they provide customer service – and, as Guy Stephens highlights, a number of trends have become evident.
The emergence in 2009 of social media as a real catalyst of change signalled for the first time the possibility that customer service had a vital role to play in winning the hearts and minds of customers.
As the year went on, more and more customer service agents could be heard chanting their new found mantra – “I’m sorry, how can I help you” – as they emerged from the shadows of their monolithic corporate structures. Customers no longer complained in private, but engaged in open and authentic conversations with ‘customer advocates’ willing to listen empathetically to their problems. Companies such as BT, ASOS, EasyJet, O2 and Virgin Trains led the way in the pursuit of helping their customers at their moment of greatest need. These companies recognised that social media, or specifically Twitter, allowed them to do just that, and they were willing to take a leap of faith.
A number of trends have become evident: the rise of help networks, customer service ‘on the go’, the decentralisation of trust and the ‘intermediation’ of business processes. All of these trends serve to highlight one simple truth: social media is diluting, redistributing and challenging the dynamics of the traditional company-customer power structure in favour of customers.
In terms of customer service, Twitter is helping to turn customers into people, whilst making companies more human, personable and approachable. People are becoming used to the immediacy of response, which in turn is forcing companies to not only re-evaluate and potentially redefine how they provide customer service, but also to validate their very legitimacy to do so.
Posted by Guy Stephens in Customer experience, Social CRM on Wed, 10/03/2010