Social Customer Service vs. Community Engagement
The lines dividing social customer service and community engagement are often blurred. In many respects providing customer service online is a form of engagement but there are some distinct differences and both have their own set of etiquette and guidelines. Some organizations have chosen to very distinctly separate the two forms of corporate social media by individuals and teams while others, often smaller companies with less resources opt for a social savvy individual undertaking a variety of online engagement. While there is no set formula for either there are general distinctions between the two, specifically concerning etiquette, around when to reach out and how.
First and foremost, at a top level, community could be summarized as an initiative that takes time, attention and constant reinforcement and nurturing. Customer service at its essence is addressing and resolving a problem, transactional, and as such has a definite end or conclusion. While paths may, and likely will cross, objectives differ.
Timing vs. Nurturing
A service or product problem expressed online is blatantly within the realm of customer service and should be addressed as a priority by the customer service team. Being both a customer and someone who on occasion addresses complaints online, time (and as little as possible) is of the essence. Any given issue may require extended time to address properly, however, initial contact and acknowledgement of it should be as close to instantaneous as possible (no pressure!). And, in order to avoid any unnecessary delay this should be resolved by the customer service department, either directly online or offline if it is regarding confidential information or requires further attention.
However, the community team has a role to play. If a customer is complaining online, community teams should be aware of who they are, and why they are upset. This information can help inform a future community content strategy. Moreover in some cases where the person is an influencer or someone known to the community team there is no reason why they should not reach out to this person to gain a greater insight into their concerns in order to gain some quality feedback.
Polar opposite to ‘the complaint’, ‘the promoter’ sits almost exclusively within the realm of community. While a promoter might well encounter a service issue, at which point customer service can jump in, ensuring that there is a relationship with the fans and brand advocates is something that is very far removed from transactional and needs to be nurtured. Promoters are not simply just advocates but often experts in their own right who can add immense value, from sharing your content to guest posts on your blog and inputting in product/ brand development. Very much the opposite of ‘touch and go’ these relationships can be integral to a businesses’ success.
Prioritizing
How, when and where you reach out will be intrinsically different when approaching a service based enquiry as opposed to a mention or industry conversation, as may be the case when acting as a community manager. Speed will be key if there is a complaint whereas content will trump speed on the community front. The value add of community is not necessarily being the first (although it can be nice) it’s quality content and encouraging and furthering the conversation. Community managers can be much broader in their outreach specifically with regards to the industry conversation and as such should approach relevant conversations with a critical and analytical hat. Their aim is to further the industry conversation and perhaps see beyond the horizon as it currently presents itself. As such the ways in which community managers vs. online customer service representatives prioritize is worlds apart and rightfully should be.
Worlds not Universes Apart
While the way these two roles reach out online and the types of conversations they engage in differs, there is ample room for collaboration. The content produced by the community team should add value internally and externally. Likewise community managers may come across service issues either directly or indirectly and as such need to be well aware of support processes, and work to feed through any such content to the relevant teams. As mentioned earlier, smaller organizations may find one and the other in the same person however there should be a clear and differing process regarding how the various conversations are categorized and subsequently followed up and engaged with. Both online customer service and community engagement are pivotal and can benefit hugely from one another. Therefore, it isn’t necessary to prioritize one function over the other, but rather to prioritize the individual pieces of conversation.
What do you think? Can community and customer service work in tandem with each other? If not, why not? Do you agree that the two areas have fundamental differences? Please leave your comments below.
Tags: Community, community management, community roles, customer enagement, Customer service, social CRM, Social Media
Agree with Philip that the lines can be blurred at times, such is the challenge with balancing the purpose of the Community with Customer Service. Community by definition, exists as a forum for customers to help one another with their questions, though complaints enter a very gray area, indeed.
In order to best allow the Community to thrive and remain engaged, time must be provided to allow the Community members to respond, albeit a tricky balance if something requires immediate attention.
Over-engagement on the part of CS in the Community can cause more harm than good, so a tight linkeage between the Community Manager and Customer Service is paramount to furthering the success of the Community.
If you have the right personnel for either task there could be a sharing of responsibilities. However, processes on what, how, when you engage and act are vital. Most larger companies have these roles split and as long as there is clear and open communication lines then this works.
I think the challenge is where customers abuse the channels and expect things. In a community forum setting, the community helps and at times are advocates for the brand, where as on Twitter customers pummel away with little and sometime no input/support from advocates.
Open communication is key as well as following the processes in place.
Nice post.
My thoughts are that community management is part of servicing the customers, when you separate both rolls the risk is that both may claim the same incident and will use different approaches to resolve it.
The traditional customer service is focused (or should me) on helping the customer with the problem while the main concern of a community manager should be how this impacts the community and how to handle that.
The thing is that the customer is a part of the community and on the other side: only focussing on the community without focussing on the customer and his problem won't work as well.
Every customer server representative should have knowledge about community management though you can specialize some of them in working on social media channels.
If you choose to separate the responsibility for servicing customers to different people and functions you will loose time and you will never be able to speak with "one voice"
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