New Study shows top global brands use social media to improve customer service

NEW research shows how leading consumer electronics companies are utilising social media to support their customers.

The white paper examines the social strategies of seven Fortune 500 companies, and provides a list of best practices and recommendations for integrating social care into the traditional customer care environment.

Commissioned by global contact center provider TELUS International and carried out by Spot Consulting and Social Dynamx, the research examines how brands including Apple, Google, Dell, HP, RIM, Best Buy and DIRECTV are exploring the opportunities around customer support through dedicated “social care” channels. Findings suggest that these big brands are still in the early stages of developing their people, processes and technologies in this area. As a result, there is no consistent approach to social customer care, even among these high-tech leaders.

Apple, for example, limits social media customer care to its own branded support forum while Dell and HP have created several social channels for customer-to-customer support with little direct intervention. Best Buy has empowered employees to provide proactive social care via Twitter, and Google has taken advantage of rich media capabilities to provide customer support through easy-to-follow “how to” videos. The companies studied all provided elements of effective social care to their customers by a demonstrating a combination of building cross-functional teams, embracing the appropriate communications style for the channel, following through on conversations, and providing proactive social care where possible.

“Social care offers a tremendous new customer service opportunity which allows companies to effectively track conversations about their brands in addition to improving the overall brand sentiment,” says Walter Van Norden, Marketing Director at TELUS International. “Leading analysts like Gartner predict that at least 35 percent of customer service centers will integrate some form of social capability by 2013 so investing time and resources in this area now makes a lot of sense.”

To download the TELUS International white paper and learn more about social care, click here.

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