Living in a 24x7 world

Living in a 24x7 world

Published on: August 18, 2011
Author: Epticablog
The internet has fundamentally changed how humans operate. The fact that we can access information and services at the click of our mouse has reduced our willingness to be patient or to wait for responses. If consumers can’t immediately find the information they are looking for on your web page they are likely to surf over to the competition – so ensuring you can combat this growing impatience is at the heart of successful customer service strategies.

However companies need to balance the desire to provide 24 hour a day customer support with the cost of having contact centre agents on call throughout the night. Call or email volumes will be lower but those that do contact you are likely to have real issues that can’t wait until morning.

Australian telco Telstra has come up with an interesting answer to the conundrum of delivering 24x7 customer service in a cost-effective manner. As part of its ongoing strategy to deliver excellent customer service it has just announced that it will provide support through its social media team – 24 hours a day. Customers can reach the team through live chat on Facebook, tweet or post a question to get a response via email within two to four hours. As Telstra points out 20 per cent of the tweets that it receives are after business hours already, so the demand is definitely there from both local and international customers.

Cleverly, Telstra is also embracing the wisdom of its customers within social customer service as well. It has launched online CrowdSupport, where customers can provide answers to specific questions on products and services in response to queries. This opens up customer service, reduces the load on agents and actually helps develop a loyal user community, which can only help customer retention.

While it is early days for Telstra’s initiative it could well give some pointers to how social media will help extend customer service in a 24 hour a day world.

Tags: 24/7, contact centre, Customer Service, Social media, Telecoms, Telstra, Twitter
Categories: Contact Center, Customer Service, Email Management, Multichannel Customer Service, Social CRM, Telecoms

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