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Integrating Social Media and Customer Service to Drive Bottom Line Results

How do you control the value of your brand in a social media focused market? One misstep on your part can quickly turn into a digital lynch mob, seriously damaging your reputation. How do you avoid this landslide and ensure your social media efforts are working for you and not against you?

This recent Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) white paper, “Bridging the Great Divide: Best Practices for Integrating Social Media and Customer Service for Bottom Line Results”, explores the current problem in too many organizations: marketing and corporate communications are driving social media engagement, lacking the skill sets and tools to successfully handle customer issues.

The data generated through social media has the potential to inform and provide context for a number of discreet operations within the enterprise. When that data is lost, the business issue becomes a critical one.

The business needs a new strategy, one that will integrate social media operations with customer service to address the varying reasons people use social channels to research, advocate or attack your brand. You also need to be able to leverage the information people provide through these mediums.

Data integration offers opportunity for great improvements within your organization, if you seize it. To recognize and leverage these opportunities, you’ve got to take social media beyond the marketing department and create a customer engagement channel. To be effective, you’ve got to implement four critical steps for social media integration:

• Listen – Understand How Your Customer Base Discusses Your Brand
• Prioritize – Define, Segment, and Prioritize Actions Toward Social Media Activities
• Engage – Respond, Inform, and Notify High Target (News - Alert) & High-worth Consumers
• Integrate – Combine Touch Points Across Marketing & Customer Service

Want to explore each point in depth and learn how to leverage social media to the benefit of your organization and realize some serious ROI? Download this white paper in full. 

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell