Is Your Customer Service Multichannel?

The Challenge: Just as businesses must provide customers with a wide variety of marketing channels to choose from, they must allow a choice of multiple service channels.

As we've discussed previously, multichannel marketing enables delivery of messages per an individual's media preferences. Some customers want to engage businesses on social media, others want to receive email, and significant percentages still prefer direct mail.

If you focus on a single channel at the expense of others, you're neglecting a significant portion of your customer base. The same holds true for customer service.

ESSENTIAL CUSTOMER SERVICE CHANNELS:

Phone
American Express has recently demonstrated the amazing value of high-quality phone service. Outstanding service leads to increased revenue and shareholder value. But not every business can enable 24/7 phone support, and not all customers want to engage on the phone.

Email
Service operations shouldn't try getting customers off the phone as quickly as possible, but customers should have the option to handle issues without much engagement on their part. In those cases, the most popular alternative to phone support is email.

Important new workshop Customer Experience Marketing: 5 Steps to Ensure Success developed by the DMA & Ernan Roman. Click to learn more.

Live Chat
SMS text and online chat are a part of nearly all your customers' lives. Implementing Live Chat integrates this convenient customer option. Be sure your customer service team learns from the valuable Voice of Customer (VoC) data in the form of session logs.

Social Media
Regardless whether your business is on major social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, your customers are—and they're talking about you. Don't lose control of that conversation. Lead it.

Product Guides and F.A.Q.'s
Sometimes customers simply want to help themselves. For their sake, make sure that your online documentation is current and comprehensive.

BEST PRACTICES FOR MULTICHANNEL SERVICE:

Let Customers Prioritize Their Channel Preferences
Many businesses enable multichannel service, only to bury their phone number while placing a link to their F.A.Q.'s on every page. This should be the customer's decision, not yours. Give customers their choice of service channel by prominently displaying every option on every page of your site.

Enable 24/7 Customer Service
For many businesses, the marginal value of 24/7 phone support may be too low to justify the additional cost. But, customers should be able to engage your service team any time of the day—even by just sending a question. Enabling multichannel service allows them to do so.

Be Clear and Accurate About Response Times
Effective call center operations include wait time estimates, a form of transparency that significantly reduces customer frustration. The same should be true of all your service channels: immediately send customers an automatic response from all channels, and include a clear and accurate statement of when they'll get an answer to their question.

Failure to Engage with Social Media Will Reduce Revenue and Increase Risk

The Challenge: Social media platforms are crucial to building customer engagement, but the vast majority of marketers haven’t incorporated that reality into their daily workflow—with outsize consequences to their bottom lines.

A recent study by IBM found that while more than 80 percent of CMO’s track traditional information sources, only 26 percent of CMO’s track blogs―to say nothing of newer platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Mila D'Antonio at 1to1 Media described the consequences: "CMO’s who underestimate the impact of more deeply engaging in social media are missing opportunities to grow revenue, expand brand value, and strengthen customer loyalty."

This disconnect costs businesses money.

Last week, American Express released their 2012 Global Customer Service Barometer. They found that consumers who use social media for customer service are significantly more valuable than the general population.

Socially engaged customers:
 • Are almost twice as willing to spend more for excellent service than the general population.
 • Are nearly three times as likely to communicate positive customer service experiences.

But there's also a risk.

The flipside of socially engaged customers:
 • They are over 50 percent more likely to cancel an intended purchase because of poor customer service than the general population.
 • They are over twice as willing to share negative customer service experiences. 

CMO’s cannot take advantage of the opportunities created by social media – or mitigate the risks – if they are not engaged participants themselves. As D'Antonio wrote, "Today’s CMO’s Should Be Social Media Socialites, not Wallflowers”.

BEST PRACTICES FOR SOCIALLY ENGAGED MARKETERS:

→ Establish Social Media KPIs
For too many CMO’s, tracking social media is an afterthought. To break this pattern, socially engaged marketers need to establish Key Performance Metrics (KPIs) for every social channel they engage, and build an organization that optimizes them.

→ Track the Online Conversation in Real Time
Even if you’re not on the major social media platforms, your customers are—and they’re talking about you. Build a rigorous process to track your online reputation in real time, even on platforms you don’t actively engage.

→ Expand PR Beyond Traditional Platforms
Marketing and PR efforts must be closely aligned, in traditional media and new. Traditional press releases and media blitzes still have their place, but an effective PR organization needs to spread the word on Facebook, Twitter and beyond.

Instagram: 4 Lessons on Optimizing for Engagement

The Challenge: Instagram's billion-dollar exit was not an anomaly. It was a lesson about the value of “engagement” that every marketer must heed.

Since the advent of social media advertising on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms, "engagement" has become a mantra for marketers. But despite the media buzz, many businesses remain hesitant to embrace the new reality.

Search marketing is clear: optimize ad spend for conversions (i.e., revenue). But what is the value of "engagements" and "likes"?

Then, Facebook put a value on engagement: $1 billion. That was the price they paid for photo-sharing site Instagram: a company with no revenue―and very impressive engagement metrics.

Google and Facebook introduced AdWords and "Sponsored Stories" years after launching their sites. They began by building customer loyalty and engagement, and found their revenue streams later. With 30 million users in only two years, Instagram is on the same path.

Speaking with Bloomberg, Instagram VC Chris Sacca identified two keys to the site's success:

1) High Percentage of Engagement
According to Sacca, a high percentage of photos shared on Instagram lead to user engagement, most often in the form of "likes." That promise of feedback brings users back to the site, repeatedly.

2) The "Dopamine Effect"
"That engagement creates the dopamine effect that leaves users feeling fantastic and coming back for more," Sacca told Bloomberg. Photo sharing without engagement won't lead to the dopamine effect―though it might lead to a narcoleptic one.

4 Imperatives for Engagement-Optimized Marketing

1. Build Mechanisms for Engagement
Give your users a way to share, tweet, like, or "+1" your content. You can't optimize for engagement if you don't facilitate it.

2. Create Engaging Content
If you want customers to engage your brand, you need to produce a significant volume of high-quality content. Creating that content is a business-critical function; staff and budget for it accordingly.

3. Reward Customer Evangelists
The journey to a million user engagements begins with one "like." Early evangelists are among your most important customers. Target them with custom messaging and special offers―and keep them engaged.

4. Don't Stifle Engagement by Chasing Short-Term Revenue
When customers start engaging your content, build on that momentum. Don't cut it off with premature "asks." The easiest way to kill engagement is by selling.