social customer service: the next battleground

Social Customer ServiceThe Next Battleground

The AgileEnterprise

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The AgileEnterprise

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the power of the customer

Your customers are mobile, connected,

and social. They are interacting with your

business in new and powerful ways. They are

empowered. This shift means that customer

service is playing a broader, increasingly

critical role in the battle for customer

mindshare, share of wallet, and brand value.

Companies who aren’t building a customer-

centric approach and working to provide the

highest quality customer experience are failing

to optimize their business and potentially

putting their organization’s very survival

in jeopardy.

Research points to the importance of investing

in building a customer service organization

that is agile and able to respond to customer

issues not only with speed, but with thoughtful

touches that provide that customer with value.

Customer service is the next battleground

in which companies must compete in

order to meet and exceed their customers’

expectations, or risk them taking their

business elsewhere.

To compete in this new battleground, forward

thinking organizations are looking to align both

their technologies and their culture around a

more social vision of service. They are arming

employees with tools that allow them to

collaborate across the customer lifecycle, and

transform every department and customer

touch into a high value communication that is

“customer obsessed.”

Bluewolf is working with our clients to align

their organizations around this powerful shift.

How does one transition from a “cost

to cover” model for customer service

to one that measures the overall “value

of service?”

What employee skills and corporate

culture must exist in a customer-

centric enterprise?

Helping clients answer these broader questions

enables them to fully develop a more social

approach to customer service.

the “value” of service

Traditional customer service metrics measure

time and money in hard and concrete

measures. But these measures, such as first

call resolution and average handle time,

no longer reflect the complete picture of

customer service since the traditional phone

channels typically do not—and should not—

exist as the single point of service. e-Service

technologies are being deployed to offload low

level service problems, and boost a customer’s

ability to find knowledge and answers directly

59% of customers will switch brands to receive better service.

Up to 85% of your business could be lost due to poor customer service.

73% of customers have spent more with a company because of a history of good customer service.

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themselves, also known as self-service

strategies. But beyond adding e-Service, a fully

optimized social service strategy is enabled by

multiple service channels, allowing customers

a choice to connect with companies where

they are, on their terms.

Customer service is also evolving through

the skilled use of social media monitoring

where companies are increasingly listening,

engaging, and responding to customers

outside the domain of their service desk. Social

media channels can no longer be ignored

for customer service. Not only should they

be an essential part of a company’s service

strategy, but social media monitoring offers

powerful new ways for organizations to identify

new revenue opportunities, understand how

customers are connecting with a product or

brand, and how to quickly respond to a wide

range of product or service problems.

When used effectively, responding to

customers through social media channels

allows companies to take credit for their

outstanding customer service in a very

public forum. They can even turn customers,

and their broader network of connections

and followers, into powerful advocates

for their company and brand. In this new

world, customer service metrics must

evolve to measure social metrics such as

customer sentiment, conversation volume,

likes, retweets, and net promoter score, in

conjunction with more traditional metrics, to

gain the complete picture.

Another powerful metric for service

organizations to track and exploit is the

ability for your team to cross-sell or up-sell

customers to new or complementary products.

Turning a service call into a sales opportunity

can be tricky. When artfully executed (by

focusing on providing value to your customer),

a service call can turn a previous cost center

into revenue generating business and can

make service agents a hero, both to your

customer and to the organization.

creating a social service culture

Setting a new vision and metrics around

social service is an important step in

transforming customer service and enabling

your organization to succeed. But effective

execution depends on your organization’s

ability to realign technology around your

employees, empowering people with both the

tools and culture to service your customers

in new and more powerful ways. No longer

do customer service agents alone own “the

satisfaction” of customers. Every department

has a responsibility to the customer.

20% of the Fortune 500’s 100 largest companies engage with their customers on Facebook.

By 2014 refusing to communicate via social channels will be as harmful as ignoring emails or phone calls is today.

TRADITIONAL CUSTOMER SERVICE METRICS:

• Satisfaction metrics

• Defection rates

• First-call resolutions

• Average handle time

• Agent utilization

• Cost to service customer

EMERGING SOCIAL SUPPORT METRICS:

• Customer sentiment

• Self service usage

• Cross-sell/up sell rates

• Conversation volume

• Likes, retweets,

+1s, etc.

• Net promoter score

Leading organizations are combining traditional service metrics with emerging social support metrics to gain a complete picture of customer engagement with their brand.


Departments that used to operate more as

individual silos need to collaborate and ensure

the end customer experience is consistent and

positive across marketing, sales, operations,

and support.

Management’s task is to set a customer

focused culture in place. This must be backed

up with streamlined business processes and

technologies that allow every employee to

collaborate around improving the experience

for customers. The processes should remove

barriers, streamline handoffs, and allow

visibility into how to improve and optimize

performance ongoing.

A strong central CRM, such as Salesforce,

operating across the organization to track

a single system of customer truth, allows

everyone to be on the same page. When

supported in customer service by tools such

as Service Cloud, Chatter, and Radian6’s

Social Hub, your employees have the tools

they need to move and route customer

information, collaborate and respond quickly

around solutions, and communicate back to

customers both with speed and accuracy.

Technology is important. However, without

proper training, technology by itself will

not enable a social service transformation.

Change management is a critical piece of any

successful deployment, and impacts the end

user adoption of any new technology. Training

and aligning employees to these powerful

new technologies, and providing a defined

process for them to interact outside of their

departments early and often, is really what

helps set your service strategy apart.

Engaged, knowledgeable employees

consistently deliver a better customer

experience. This translates directly to a

company’s bottom line, through both cost

savings due to lower customer attrition rates,

but also through new sales, from either

effective cross selling or customers choosing

to spend additional money with brands that

provide a consistent, high quality customer

experience. When employees feel empowered,

they can take ownership over the customer

interactions they have and work to establish a

deeper customer connection. They can make

your customer more successful and engaged

with your organization.

When organizations break down departmental

silos, the entire organization can work together

to improve each customer touch point. When

employees are engaged and empowered

3x as many internal resources are necessary to acquire a new customer than retain one.

Engaged, knowledgeable employees deliver a better customer experience and close 33% more deals.


around a common purpose and given the

tools and training to streamline their efforts,

your organization will be able to propel your

business forward and compete in the new

social service battleground.

choosing a partner

Companies looking to reap the benefits

discussed in this paper should understand that

success rests upon not only selecting the right

technology, but also the right partner to help

transform your organization. Business process

expertise and technical competence play an

important role, but of equal importance is

the cultural fit with an organization. When

selecting a consulting partner, be sure that

partner has a proven process to help you

establish your implementation requirements,

time-lines, and cost upfront. Also, look for a

proactive approach that identifies behavioral

and organizational factors that may impact

adoption. A true partner will listen carefully

and have the expertise to build a solution that

maps to your unique organizational challenges

and one that employees will actually use.

about bluewolf

Bluewolf has a dedicated consulting practice

around helping companies transform their

customer service desks. Our proven approach

and methodology help organizations set

their vision, implement that vision through

a combination of technology and business

process, and align their employees and culture

to this change.

As a global agile consultancy, Bluewolf

provides consulting services across the

customer life cycle, IT resourcing, managed

services and training. Trusted by businesses

in diverse industries, Bluewolf is translating

today’s unique business environment into

opportunities for growth. With Bluewolf,

businesses are able to deliver results that

benefit the customer, the workforce, and the

bottom line.