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Amdocs, a provider of customer experience systems and services has released the findings of a research study that identifies social media as an emerging channel for consumers seeking customer-care assistance.
The research highlights an opportunity for service providers to improve the customer experience and reduce call center costs. By linking customers’ social media identities to their profiles stored in the customer relationship management (CRM) system, and using big data analytics techniques to identify important social media shouts, service providers can pre-empt calls or even better resolve the issue before the call reaches the call center.
The Amdocs-sponsored research study comprised of two projects: a survey exploring service providers’ customer care readiness on social media conducted by Ovum, and a separate survey conducted by Coleman Parkes that examined consumer attitudes towards social media as a customer-care channel.
The study finds that 68% of service providers believe their customers take to social media such as Twitter or Facebook because they are unable to reach a care agent on the phone. The reality though, is that 50% of consumers actually prefer using social media to reach their service provider rather than call the contact center.
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According to the study ercent of customers have tried to communicate with their service provider for customer service on social media yet a three quarters of those never received a response or resolution, leaving a frustrated 80% of those citing that they have no choice but to call the call center.
While about 52% of consumers expect a response within 30 minutes of their social media contact, only 24 % of service providers say they respond within that timeframe.
Going by the survey, there’s work to be done for service providers to integrate social media data into their customer profiles – 93% of service providers state that they cannot identify customers from their social media profiles, and 64% of service providers do not store social media interactions in their customer relationship management (CRM) database.
“Subscribers are increasingly reaching out to their service provider across social media for customer care but due to lack of customer insights service providers are only able to provide generic responses, leaving the customer feeling more frustrated.” said Shagun Bali, Analyst at Ovum. “However, if service providers link their customer’s social identity to the customer profile already stored in their CRM systems they can gain contextual knowledge of the customer, and as a result deliver a consistent response while improving customer satisfaction and cutting costs by increasing first call resolution (FCR).”
“The research shows a huge opportunity to deflect customer care to lower-cost, social media channels and to increase Net Promoter Score (NPS) and positive word-of-mouth visibility,” said Rebecca Prudhomme, Vice President for product and solution marketing at Amdocs. “When people take to Twitter or Facebook to ask questions or, worse yet, complain about their service provider, that’s an opportunity the service provider can take to proactively resolve that customer’s issue – if they know that customer’s real identity.”
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