Genesys unveils new social media tools for customer service

Alcatel-Lucent has unveiled the Genesys Social Media Strategy that urges companies to aggressively bring social media practices to the next level by using business tools to tie social media community interactions with customer service and marketing organisations.

Consumers expect companies to engage with them via social media and while almost every company has made an attempt to establish such a presence it is typically done manually in standalone deployments and in response to consumer queries and complaints. The lack of an enterprise-wide social media strategy and engaging with consumers only on a department-by-department basis contribute to a poor consumer experience and ultimately undermine brand advocacy and loyalty.

“For the past few years social media has impacted the way companies communicate with consumers and their employees, resulting mainly in the leveraging of Facebook and/or Twitter as another channel to distribute press releases and other marketing material,” commented Brian Riggs, Research Director, Enterprise Software and Communications at Current Analysis. “As an enterprise’s approach to social media matures, it will be critical for them to invest in tools that allow them to integrate social media efforts across marketing, communications and the contact centre and directly impact revenues and operational expenses.”

According to a 2010 study by the Society of New Communications Research, “72 per cent of respondents said they used social media to research a company’s reputation for customer care before making a purchase, and 74 per cent choose to do business with companies based on the customer care experiences shared by others online.” With such large percentages of consumers using social media to acquire knowledge about a company to form a purchase decision, it is critical that companies integrate social media into their marketing and customer service business.

“As more consumers use social media there is an increasing desire to engage with businesses,” said Eric Tamblyn, Vice President, Genesys Product Marketing at Alcatel-Lucent. “Marketing and customer service departments are challenged with both supporting these new touch points and retaining consumer information collected if the conversation extends to other departments. By leveraging the Genesys solution’s ability to optimise interactions across voice and non-voice touch points, businesses can proactively market and provide consistent customer service via Web applications, phone or mobile devices, delivering an exceptional experience for their consumers.”

25 Aug 2010

Filed under Call Centre News