LiveOps Blog
Social Customer Service: The Pivotal Driver of the Social Enterprise
LiveOps CMO, Ann Ruckstuhl, with social strategist and evangelist, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff at CRM Evolution
We have enjoyed our recent collaborative efforts with prominent social strategist and evangelist, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, and today, we strengthened our partnership with her even further. At CRM Evolution 2012 in New York City, I was fortunate to host a session with her on “Social Customer Service: The Pivotal Driver of the Social Enterprise.”
At the beginning of the session, we asked the audience a question that many companies ask themselves: Who actually owns social media? Is it the marketing, PR, sales, or communication department? We followed that question up with more questions: What if those departments worked together in identifying, engaging with, and retaining social customers? And what if the customer service department was the driver of the social customer? LiveOps, itself, challenges customer service to take the lead in creating a cross-functional team to turn social customer service into a strategic asset and differentiator for the company.
My colleague, Sanjay Mathur, stated in his last blog post that in order for organizations to take on this radically new breed of customer – the social customer – they, too, need to make a radical change. That change is collaboration. Internal teams must work together, more now than ever before, to deliver customer service the way customers want it. This means marketing, PR, sales, and communication departments need to coordinate effectively with customer support to ensure customer issues are managed properly. In turn, customer support needs to make sure they are tightly integrated with the influx of customer feedback on social channels. If the relationship between departments is efficient, and they are armed with the right technology and process to work together to manage customer interactions residing in the contact center, customers become happier and the company becomes happier.
Ann Ruckstuhl, Chief Marketing Officer, LiveOps
LiveOps Declares the “New Era of CRM” is Very Real
Ann Ruckstuhl, Chief Marketing Officer, LiveOps
It’s a beautiful day in New York City, and we’re here attending the first day of sessions at CRM Evolution 2012. This event brings together customer relationship management (CRM) gurus and focuses on ways to improve how companies interact with customers. The reason we are more enthusiastic than ever to attend this year’s event is its focus on social. If you’re in the business of customer service, you understand the impact social has on consumers and the companies they engage with. It’s not a passing fad, but a “New Era,” which is an important topic we’ve been talking about since earlier this year when we added Facebook integration to LiveOps Social.
This morning, I had the opportunity to sit in on ISM Founder and President Barton Goldenberg’s presentation on “The New Era of CRM” and wanted to share my thoughts coming out of it. Barton explained that in order for CRM to be successful, companies must not only integrate people, process, and technology together to maximize relationships with customers. They must now also integrate social. Meaning, if they don’t up-level from the traditional CRM customer touch points and leverage the social customer touch point, others will.
Barton spent most of the session discussing how companies can gain customer insight by the tremendous listening capability now available through social channels. The challenge, however, exists in turning listening and intelligence into actionable engagement. This is where the power of many comes in. The cloud contact center has the resources, people, and might to engage with customers in a holistic way. Customers want options not only in their purchasing decisions but also in the way they interact with brands. Point solutions like traditional CRM or social CRM alone don’t always allow consumers to interact with a brand on the channel they prefer. We do.
Through the LiveOps Platform, we have blended the perfect mix of traditional CRM and social CRM into the customer service cloud contact center to increase satisfaction, drive loyalty, and create brand advocates for life. By doing so, LiveOps is powering a “New Era of CRM” where customers and brands engage in a two-way, real-time interaction on the consumer’s channel of choice. Say hello to the new the face of customer service.