Tim Passios
INDIANAPOLIS – Social media still resides on the fringe of contact centres, but more widespread adoption can happen in as little as a year, according to Interactive Intelligence Inc.’s director of solutions marketing Tim Passios.
“They’re looking at it, they’re thinking about it, but they don’t know yet if it’s sticking around or if they’re ready for it,” Passios told InfoExecutive at the Interactive Intelligence User Forum in Indianapolis this week. “But what’s driving it is the younger generation. They’re the ones using it, they’re the ones embracing it and they’re the ones contacting (our customers) using their media of choice.”
Today, contact centres engage with their client base through a plethora of media – phone calls, e-mail and SMS messages – but in order to stay abreast of market trends and to monitor the consumer’s level of satisfaction, organizations have begun to realize that in order to stay relevant, social media is critical.
“Customers want to interact with the contact centre the way they want to using the channels they want to,” Passios said. “If you don’t give them the opportunity to do that, then you’re not meeting their end desire of good customer satisfaction. So if they choose to contact you via Twitter, then you should be able to monitor that. If they want to chat with you, you need to be able to provide service to them in that channel they have chosen otherwise you’re not going to establish good brand loyalty.”
So far, early adopters have been in the financial services and retail industry, Passios said, adding that the bulk fit into the medium to large enterprise category because of the resources required to deploy a good social media offering.
