Last Tuesday marked the first of a series of thematic half day seminars that 6Consulting will be hosting on a quarterly basis. Customer Service 2.0 Proactive and Social looked at what impact social media was having on the customer service landscape and how perceptions around service related interactions were fundamentally changing.

“Social Customer Service is generating considerable interest across major businesses in the UK. 6Consulting’s Customer Service 2.0 event provided a rounded picture of the tools that help facilitate online engagement, the business impact to anticipate customer needs, as well as best practise models and the importance of understanding the enterprise-wide implications and benefits of doing so.“

– Guy Stephens, Senior Consultant at Foviance and guest speaker at Customer Service 2.0

Naturally at 6Consulting we know online engagement can be facilitated through the use of smart tools and monitoring software so we kicked off the day with a presentation by Natalie Oliphant, a 6Consulting Product Specialist. Reviewing key components of Radian6 and the Engagement Console, Natalie discussed how you could take a proactive role to anticipate, engage and manage service related social media exchanges.

Highlights included:

• Using the Radian6 Dashboard and Engagement Console to easily manage and coordinate online customer care

• Configuration of the system to track key themes and issues emerging online

• Ensuring that appropriate online conversations are tracked, actioned and reported on effectively and most importantly quickly

Having reviewed system functionalities we explored the principles behind the move to social, looking at the multifaceted engagement models and roles that both customers and social customer service professionals provide in this evolving environment.  Taking us through his journey at The Carphone Warehouse, Guy Stephens spoke about the importance of listening, understanding where, and how customers are interacting through to the impact that the emergence of social customer service is having on customer engagement and business strategy.

Guy was joined by Bian Salins, Head of Social Media Innovation for BTCare, who provided insight into fundamental changes that affect organisations providing service through social channels. Bian spoke about how social is an inter-disciplinary skill and impacts stakeholders across the business regardless of whether the initial intent and focus is on Marketing, PR or Customer Service.

“We understand the importance of social media as a shift in how our customers want to interact with us so meeting this need and helping our customers online has played a pivotal role in making our business and brand more accessible and ultimately successful.”

– Bian Salins, Head of Social Media Innovation, BTCare

The afternoon highlighted that social media is less about the form of technology it takes, but rather the interactions between individuals through this medium. Collaborating, sharing and creating around areas of shared interest is made easier through social media which brought us to the presentation of 6Consulting’s Customer Service Insight Report by Sullivan McIntyre, Professional Services Manager.

Sullivan drew attention to the fact that the public has adopted social media to instantly alert companies to customer service issues. Although skepticism and concern over the use of social media as a customer service tool has meant that companies have hesitated with its adoption, pioneering companies have shown that social media is becoming business-critical to successful customer services.

The report was compiled using a robust random sample over a three month period through Radian6 alongside manual data capture by social media analysts who manually assigned sentiment. The report covered five key industries and ten companies: ASOS and Topshop, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, Npower and British Gas, BT and Virgin Media, O2 and Vodafone.

Key findings included:

• Nearly half of all conversations were telecoms related followed by mobile phone operators

• Social Net Promoter Scores (SNPS) ranged between +60% to -49% with 8 of the 10 companies having negative SNPS

• Tracking response rates and times the report found a varied level in speed of response ranging from less than an hour to an average of 26 hours for some companies

• In social media both response rate and speed are critical

• The emergence of pioneers within this space with high engagement scores are moving into the leaders’ quadrant. However there is room for improvement in SNPS and positive sentiment.

If you are interested in viewing the full report contact us at marketing@6consulting.co.uk

The report brought an interesting day to a close with some food for thought. If you are interested in reviewing the presentations from the day click here. We would like to thank all of our speakers and everyone in attendance and hope that you will join us for our next seminar in the spring.

Tags: 6consulting, Engagement Console, event, Insight Reporting, Seminar, social customer service, Social Media, Social Media Monitoring