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Is Social Media Set to Dictate Customer Care in Asia Pacific?

By Mini Swamy, TMCnet Contributor

The potency of social media can no longer be ignored. Even as enterprises are veering toward it as a tool to harness customer engagement, the urgent need to increase efficiency and productivity in contact centers has seen greater adoption of social media in customer care in Asia Pacific.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), 'Social Media in Customer Care - Asia-Pacific View,' underpins the importance of social media as it enables enterprises to interact with customers not only during calls but also during customer discussions with friends or peer on social networks. This is an added advantage and properly handled could prove rather lucrative for those who use the social networks.

"With the social media, vendors will be able to better articulate their strategies to customers," noted Krishna Baidya, industry manager at Frost & Sullivan.

Although social media has grown in importance so rapidly, why is adoption still considered challenging?

Well, despite the importance of interpersonal interactions, the report noted that many enterprises seemed to prefer investing more in system upgrades rather than improving agents' interpersonal skills and domain knowledge.

According to Baidya, adopting the social media but adopting a siloed approach is not only inadequate but self defeating. He noted that enterprises needed to respond proactively if the social media venture is to succeed. Once a social channel for customer interaction has been established, only quick responses and frequent updates will keep the channel alive. Also, such interactions need to offer a unifying experience across different channels.

Moreover, Baidya observed that they need to have a clear roadmap for new technology platforms or else will have trouble incorporating the solutions. Also, technology sellers need to have a superior understanding of customers' business objectives as well as demonstrate quick returns on investment.

That being so, the report does indicate that in this changing communication landscape, contact centers need to do their homework well before they build a new set of processes and programs that can complement the existing ones.

Asia Pacific is among the top ten in the list of top 30 countries with the most number of Facebook (News - Alert) users, which implies that very soon social media customer engagement will no longer be an option but a compulsion. With the marketing, corporate communications/public relations sectors as well as customer service/contact centers eager to adopt social media, a time could come when social media becomes the 'be all and end all' for everyone.

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