April 1, 2015
Those who have been in the technology field long enough can remember a time when it took a while to connect with whatever or whomever you were trying to reach. That's just the way it was.
But these days, no one is interested in waiting for anything. If customers can’t establish an instant connection with you or your company, they have no qualms about taking their business elsewhere.
In an article on the homepage of inContact—a leader in cloud-based contact center solutions—Joshua March, founder of Conversocial, examines the impact “Social” is having on today’s contact centers and how leaders need to respond if they hope to survive.
“Even 30 seconds is too long for today’s in-the-moment, always-engaged customer to wait, spelling trouble for the future of customer service through traditional channels like email and phone,” March writes. “The world is in the midst of the biggest shift in personal computing; the transition from desktop computers to smartphones and tablets requires an entirely new, mobile-first approach to customer service.”
As such, March examines three major shifts in how people are now communicating with one another (and with companies), all of which would be considered outside the traditional call center model.
The Social Contact Center: “For major companies, social media has grown in prominence and now accounts for up to 10 percent of all inbound customer contacts, and is growing faster than any other service channel,” March says. “This powerful tool ensures that customer voices are heard, both by companies and by other customers. Social media offers a convenient, mobile-first, real-time medium.”
Peer-to-Peer Resolution: “As customers trust brands less, they are beginning to trust their peers more. Customers have found their voice on social media, and now that voice is growing louder and more powerful,” March notes. “Customers are turning away from brands and toward each other, expecting faster and more authentic engagement than ever before.”
Mobile Messaging Applications: “These messaging apps are the biggest new force in communication, and they’re only growing,” he says. “The daily message volume on WhatsApp (owned by Facebook ( – )) is now 50 percent higher than global SMS volume.”
It seems the future of communications is set. As March says, “With 64 percent of consumers preferring texting over voice as a customer service channel when given the choice, customer-centric organizations need to have real agents who are empowered to be flexible, authentic, and able to resolve real issues within the channel.” It couldn’t be any clearer than that.
