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<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSocial media has become so deeply ingrained in American society that these days, the outsider is someone who doesn't<\/em> Take part in this new way of communicating. Whether it\u2019s Twitter, Facebook (News<\/a> \u2013 Alert<\/a>), Instagram, or any of the myriad other options available\u2014it seems as if everyone uses something \u2018socially.\u2019<\/p>\n This is a point that has not gone unnoticed by contact centers. Since people are no longer content to simply pick up the phone and wade through a menu of options, many customers are now actively seeking a better way to get in touch. As a result, customer relationship management and those responsible for it have had to \u2018step up their game.\u2019<\/p>\n In a recent blog post, Mariann McDonagh of inContact provided an overview of this phenomenon.<\/p>\n \u2018With approximately half a billion tweets sent each day and 1.44 billion active Facebook users, social media presents a host of new challenges and opportunities in the realm of customer relationship management (CRM),\u201d she noted. \u201cPeople are tweeting not only about their customer service needs but also about the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of their experiences with companies.\u201d<\/p>\n She also cited some figures from evolve24, a data analytics and insights company that measures audience perception and uses that understanding to help clients change behavior.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to evolve24, 70 percent of customer tweets to companies are being ignored \u2014 and the damage can be significant. Gartner (News<\/a> McDonagh outlined what she described as the \u201cchallenges\u201d companies are facing in this new arena:<\/p>\n Vast quantities of social interactions.<\/strong> \u201cA critical ingredient for success is the ability to identify the most relevant interactions and prioritize conversations within large volumes of social data,\u201d McDonagh said.<\/p>\n Silos of customer information.<\/strong> As a new data stream, incoming social interactions need to be integrated with customer service management and reporting systems, as well as with other customer data sources\u2014from CRM to billing to scheduling.<\/p>\n Operational efficiency.<\/strong> \u201cTraditionally, social media channels have been primarily the responsibility of marketing teams, which are not structured to handle one-on-one customer interactions,\u201d she noted. \u201cAs volume increases, companies are shifting social customer service to contact center operations.\u201d<\/p>\n McDonagh cites research indicating that about 80 percent of social media posts are not relevant to customer service, which means sifting through a lot of chaff to find the \u201cwheat.\u201d But such efforts can pay off in the long run in terms of customer satisfaction\u2014and customer retention. It\u2019s an effort worth making.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" July 02, 2015 Social media has become so ingrained in American society that the outsider these days is someone who doesn’t participate in this new way of communicating. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook (News – Alert), Instagram or any of the other myriad choices available, it seems as if everyone uses something ‘socially.’ This is a point […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contact-center-outsourcing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudbposervices.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/images.tmcnet.com\/tmc\/vertical\/financial\/images\/chart_icon.gif\"){kind=icon}
\u2013 Alert<\/a>) estimates that failure to respond via social media can lead to an increase of up to 15 percent in the churn rate for existing customers,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n