Cloud Contact Center Featured Article

Oracle Beefs Up Community Support with Service Cloud, Social Cloud Updates

By David Delony
Contributing Writer

Oracle (News - Alert) has announced a significant expansion to Oracle Service Cloud and Oracle Social Cloud with an emphasis on customer self-service.

"In today's hyper-competitive business environment, understanding the voice of the customer is essential to providing exceptional experiences, whether on public social networks, across communities, or within high-touch contact centers," David Vap, group vice president of product development for Oracle, said. "The updates to the Oracle Service Cloud and Oracle Social Cloud help businesses listen, identify and track social conversations, enabling them to quickly and efficiently respond to customers looking for answers, which helps foster a loyal group of brand ambassadors."

Oracle cited research by Nielsen that said that one in three customers preferred to contact brands through social media rather than phone or email. Customers might have tolerated listening to hold music and being told that their call was important when the only way to get in touch with a company was through a phone call, but contact centers have to evolve to meet their customers where they are. Their customers are increasingly on Twitter and Facebook (News - Alert) rather than on the phone.

The latest version of Oracle Service Cloud include Community Self-Service. A customer service representative could reach out to people having a problem with a product on Facebook, a Web forum or other media. This means that customers don’t have to file support tickets. An agent can post information from a knowledge base, letting customers solve common queries. They can also route customers to an agent qualified to help them when they have a more serious problem.

The changes bring media that have been the purview of unofficial, community support into the reach of contact centers, with an eye toward improving customer satisfaction.

Oracle is also offering greater interaction between Social Cloud and Service Cloud. Agents can adds logs and notes to posts and incidents, just as they can with a formal ticket. They can also analyze unstructured data such as chat and call logs, gauging customer satisfaction and sentiment.