Five years ago, if a business wanted to create social networking opportunities within the company, all it had to do was buy a coffee maker, throw it in a corner and call it a break room.
But in today’s hypernetworked world, you need more than coffee. You need architecture.
With the proper social architecture in place, an organization can support the growth of internal social networking, or “social business,” in countless ways. Because let’s face it: a company’s most important assets are its employees and the information they possess when interacting with customers. Whether troubleshooting issues, discussing new sales, or even through billing and collections, employee actions play a critical part in molding the overall customer experience and a consumer’s perception of a company.
For the customer service staff, social networking could transform the way they work. Agents could gain new access to people who can help solve issues whose solutions aren’t found in a document or database. On the customer-facing side, staffers would be able to view a complete customer history, including the customer’s last point of contact within the company, open cases or tickets, previously handled items, previous experience interactions with the client, projects and outcomes, and current sales activity.
Think about sales reps who are about to go into a customer meeting: wouldn’t it be great for them to know exactly what happened during the customer’s most recent interaction with their company? Or if they are about to take a call from a customer, how helpful would it be for them to know the reason for the call? Or if there is current sales or collections activity? Or what the customer’s current perception of the company is?
Teams could communicate and collaborate on various projects and post project-specific information, with the collaboration network eventually expanding to include vendors and even customers through federation or self-help websites. All of it winds up serving the same goal: improved and enhanced customer service.
Linking your contact center to experts across the rest of your company creates a well-rounded, next-generation contact center experience fit for the modern consumer. What’s more, such a dynamic social architecture can make all your employees more knowledgeable about a variety of issues, be it sales, finance, or product management. In the end, it’s all about encouraging and increasing connectivity.
Do you have any examples of how your organization has made steps like these?
(*Ed. Note: This blog post is adapted from “Internal Social Networking is Highly Underrated,” which originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine.)