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SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE Executive Summary Social media has rapidly become a powerful tool for customer engagement. Many companies have adopted effective strategies for marketing and PR efforts, but they've been slow to respond to social media's role as a customer service channel. Social customer service is a relatively new approach for some, while others have developed robust support processes that lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and in many cases better revenue performance. In a recent social media survey done by ClickSoftware1 of those who receive good customer service through social media recommend the brand and about 30% spend more money with brands that engage customers over social media. Social media networks are used for a wide range of discussions between companies and their customers. From technical support to sales, to billing and product education brands everywhere have found success using social media. Mobile devices,Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ provide a direct path to customers, yet very few organizations are able to handle the large volume of inquiries that come in over social media efficiently and effectively. If there is a conversation going on about your business on social media, shouldn't you be apart of it? Here are some questions that you should consider for your social media customer service strategy: Increa

How does my company harness the power of social customer service? What opportunities and value does it give my company? Whatcarriers departments should be involved in my social customer service model? Wireless How can I measure the success of social media customer service for my business? devices while

Managing customers through social media channels will give your company invaluable feedback, by ABI, that 31% and build customer loyalty for your products and services. This article will sentiment analysis, provide a framework - from development to implementation - to help you build a successful social media customer service model. Building a Social Team The success of your social customer service model will greatly depend on who you choose for your social media team. Building a team of "social influencers" whose personality reflects your w w w . t elenet w orand k.c om company's culture value is key to successful social customer service. Rather than training www.telenetwork.com

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SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE your team with highly scripted or automated responses, develop an engagement model that encourages personal expression, compassion, and empathy for your customers. Many of these team members will come from your customer service and technical support organizations. Recruiting people who are already social media savvy is extremely important. These are the types of employees who will provide your customers with a more personal and customized response to their issue. Questions are typically very unstructured on social channels which will lead representatives to direct message customers to more effectively drive issues to resolutions. Because of the heightened visibility of social customer service, your social media representatives should possess a strong background in writing, grammar, sentence structure, and overall analytical abilities. This group will be a very special team made up of people with many backgrounds. Recruiters should look for customer service representatives who are highly engaged, energetic, and enthusiastic about social media and your brand. Organizational Integration and Support When you begin to build your social media policy, or the rules that govern the interaction model Increa your social representatives and your customers, it's critical to establish key relationships between across many departments (e.g. marketing, PR, legal, etc.). By building escalation procedures that leverage the expertise of each department, you will enable your team to better respond to unique questions. Wireless carriers Know Yourwhile Audience devices ABI, that 31% channel caters to a different type of audience with varying expectations. When Eachbysocial media you engage customers you should understand what is expected from a customer reaching out to you on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Twitter for example is the preferred method for news, business, updates, and current events. Facebook and Google+ are designed for building brand equity. A business needs to develop a social media strategy that leverages each channel’s strengths.

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SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE Become Socially Devoted It is extremely important to demonstrate your commitment to communicating about challenging issues with your customers on social media. Having an open and direct dialog with your customers will not only grow their trust and loyalty but the trust and loyalty of their friends and family. When your customers reach out to you they expect timely and accurate responses. Brands that understand this dynamic have proven time and time again that they are truly devoted to their customers. The time it takes for to respond to your customers and the availability of social your social team will impact customers. Many companies have social media customer service hours that are limited to local business hours or time zones. Other companies respond 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. These companies are setting themselves apart in social customer service. Creating Your Social Media Engagement Policy A social media engagement policy should contain the guidelines and procedures for integrating your social media channels into all aspects of your support marketing and public relations into your customer service strategy. These ten key questions will help you build a comprehensive social media customer service strategy: Increa

1. What are the goals of your social media engagement model? 2. Where do you have a presence (e.g. Twitter, Facebook and Google+)? 3. Why do you have a presence on the channels listed in 3? Wireless carriers 4. Where should you have a presence? 5. What departments will engage with your customers over social media? devices while 6. Who will be in charge of creating content versus answering customer questions? by ABI, that 31%learn from your customer interactions over social media? 7. What can you 8. When engaging with your company how do you want your customers to envision you? 9. Who will be in charge of maintaining and updating your social media policy? 10. What will your social persona be? Once you have answered questions 1- 9, you will carefully design your social persona. A social persona is the personality of your brand on the internet and on social media channels. What personality traits do your customers identify with when they think of your brand today?What w w w. tele ne t wor k .co m personality traits will future customers identify with? www.telenetwork.com

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SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE Measuring Social Success Many of the problems that are presented through social media tend to be complicated or difficult to solve. There are growing frustrations from customers with phone based support and customer service due to long hold times, cultural issues, and poor service. This leads customers to voice their complaints via your social media sites. These complaints have high visibility to your customer's network of friends and family who are quick to respond and react. These frustrations have opened a door to consumers. Social media is the easiest and fastest way for a customer to complain. Whether its directly to your company, or about your company, social customer service will fall short if you do not define the measurement criteria for social media customer service success. Measuring social success can be complicated because there are large amount of data, variables, and resources that must be factored into your measurements. To help better understand how to measure social media customer service we have broken social success down into five categories: 1. Response Rate 2. Response Time 3. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) IncreaNet Promoter Score (NPS) 4. Social 5. Return on Investment (ROI) These key performance indicators, or KPI's, should help your company access the value and Wireless carriers effectiveness of your social media customer service strategy. devices while

Response Rate by ABI, that 31%

Response Rate is defined as the rate in which you respond to your customers over social media. This KPI is crucial for maintaining brand image. Shoutlet2 found that 50% of customers are far less likely to buy from a company after noticing unanswered questions on a social media page. The current industry standard response rate is approximately 65%; however, it is projected to increase to 75% or more by 2016. w w w . t elenet w or k.c om

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SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE Response Time Response Time is defined by the amount of time it takes you to respond to social inquires. A recent report conducted by Lightspeed Research3 shows that 25% of social media users expect a response from a post in less than an hour, and 6% of users expect a response within 10 minutes. The social media channel should be handled just like any other customer service channel. Would you turn your back on a customer who came into your store or would you hang up on a customer who called in to your help desk? All across the web there are conversations about your business. Wouldn't you rather be apart of those conversation? A quick and appropriate response to all relevant social comments should be the standard. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Businesses know that customer satisfaction is a predictor of financial performance. Satisfied customers generate more revenue. Existing customers who are highly satisfied cost less to market to compared to acquisition costs of new customers. Social media is the next strategic source of consumer insights and competitive advantage. Customer satisfaction expressed in social media is both important and measurable. Social media analysis plays an important role in gathering data to accurately measure customer satisfaction. Companies who pay attention to social CSAT will break ahead of their competitors in every case. Increa

Social Net Promoter Score (NPS) Success in social Wireless carriersmedia directly influences the Net Promoter Score, or NPS, of a brand. Because of the simplicity of social communication between your brand and your customers, a public positive sentiment will influence a larger number of people than a conversation in a call center. Creating a devices while great customer experiences requires a multifaceted social approach. Incorporating social media ABI,Net that 31% into by your Promoter Score strategy is a necessity. Focus on top-notch customer service and your NPS will positively reflect your commitment to the customer. Social Media Customer Service Return on Investment (ROI) What value does social media customer service bring to your company? Accurately measuring and reporting on social ROI is a challenge. It's difficult to calculate a hard number because many times sales are generated indirectly by social media. Although the ROI formula is built on hard w wand w . t elenet w or k.c om data estimates, it provides you with a value for measuring the return on your social media www.telenetwork.com

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SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE customer service investment. ROI = ((Gains-Cost)/Cost)*lOO The cost should be easy to accurately calculate. Usually these consist of the cost for your customer service agents + cost of hours of data analyst(s) +cost of a social media monitoring and engagement tool. Calculating gains becomes a little more complicated. Your company will want to break this area into two parts: cost savings and actual revenue that is generated. Much of this area will be estimated and best guess data. This method is not bulletproof, but will provide a good idea of what to expect. Why Your Company Should Care About Social Customer Service The lines between marketing and customer service are beginning to blur on social media sites. Customers often post questions on marketing oriented" Facebook or Twitter handles expecting customer service or technical support. The idea behind social customer service is to turn a successful service interaction into brand advocacy. Providing great social customer service over social media creates positive marketing opportunities. Customer service and support teams rely on marketing and PR teams to bring in customers while marketing and PR teams rely on customer service teams to maintain the customer relationship. Increa

Zappos has taken advantage of their social media reputation. You'll find examples littered across their Facebook and Twitter pages of customer care agents taking care of problems and answering over social media. What is most impressive about these interactions is the Wireless questions carriers number of brand advocates who insert themselves into the conversation to validate customers whodevices are surprised by the quality of service provided by the Zappos social media team. The surwhile rounding conversations often begin as a result of quality support provided in this public forum. by conversations ABI, that 31% These spread across the internet and sometimes become viral through blog posts and media coverage. You'll be surprised at how quickly these events will lead to more sales and better customer satisfaction and loyalty once you begin to engage your customers over social media.

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SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE teleNetwork In today's hyper social world everyone can see how you treat your customers by visiting Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ and searching for your brand. What they find may be a factor in their decision to do business with you or not. Many brands have equipped their customer service organizations with powerful platforms that have features enabling agents to listen and respond to social conversations. While this is a good first step, customers want more. Customers expect you to resolve their problem via social media. Does your company have a resolution oriented social media strategy or are these inquires re-routed to various departments causing delays and customer frustration? If not, you may be missing critical call deflection and issue resolution opportunities. teleNetwork has built its Social Media Resolution solution with one thing in mind - speed and accuracy. Using universal"cross trained" agents to manage social media conversations enables us to resolve issues immediately regardless of the nature of the question. By integrating these conversations into a social profile we are able to better understand your customer's likes, wants, and most importantly, their satisfaction with your products and services. This way when they contact you for help you're not starting from scratch with basic questions; you already have an idea of who this customer is and how they use your products and services. Increa Social Media Resolution provides the ability to respond to customers with the correct answer every time. This enables you to provide a rapid response with minimal wait time for social inquires. Wireless carriers

Contact teleNetwork today to find out how we can help you build a social media customer service strategy forwhile success. devices by ABI, that 31% +1.512.707.3111 www.telenetwork.com

Sources 1 http://visual.ly/customer-service-social-media 2 http://www.shoutlet.com/blog/2012/01/silence-isnt-golden-whyresponding-to-customers-should-be-a-top-priority/ w w w. tele ne t wor k .co m 3 http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/ebusiness/229000566 www.telenetwork.com

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