Tips for Kicking of Social Customer Service

Stop! Look and listen, baby. That's my philosophy (when it comes to building a business case for or launching your call center's social media strategy. Who knew that Elvis Presley could be so right about customer service? …Well, I guess he was the king of "taking care of business."

In this week's Call Center Insider feature article on social media customer service, we looked at some of the early best practices (at least, leading practices). Chief among those, was "listening."

Listening involves tracking what's being said on social media channels about your organization or the kinds of products or services it provides. It's easy: there are some very structured and robust tools on the market and some very good, simple ones that you can download free of charge from the Internet.

Why's it important to start with listening? You've got to know what types of "calls" your organization might get online and how you might handle them. You'll also be able to track your customer demographics to see which channels they're most involved with. That'll allow you to kick off your social customer service program by targeting, staffing for and measuring the channels where it'll be most effective. 

Listening has been the first step for every center I've known to be successful in the social media channel. 

Tell me what your social media strategy looks like -- here in the comments section.