Whitepaper

1 · Category
Social media partners in customer care:
How to integrate social media
into contact centres

1 · Executive Summary
Executive summary
Customer care is evolving into partnership in social
media in the digital era. As part of this transformation,
customers are getting more empowered via social
media and demanding more from their favorite brands.
Demanding customers
They require 24/7 customer care and brands that will respond to them seamlessly and quickly on every channel. Social media’s emergence as customers’ preferred communication channel is fuelling the move to provide customer care via social
media channels such as Facebook and Twitter.
Three stages of social customer service
The development of social customer service has had three stages. It began
with companies trying to block incoming social media channels, continued
with the limited, marketing-led use of social media, and now encompasses
an omni-channel, integrated approach that serves customers across all
potential communication channels.
Customers in the driver’s seat
Social media places consumers in the driver’s seat when it comes to brand image.
It enables individuals to communicate their opinions and quickly form groups with
a massive cumulative influence. In addition, the previously private company-customer communications are now placed in the public sphere for all to see. Customers demand a less scripted response from companies that responds to their needs as an individual.
Two-way trends in customer service
Social customer service transforms the messages that go out from a company – and also the wealth of incoming data from customers. Companies are increasingly expected
to provide omni-channel service which responds to customers regardless
of the specific communication channel. Doing so also enables companies with
an opportunity to integrate their social and internal CRM systems for a more granular view of their customers. Using the details within this data stream transforms social customer care from a cost-centre into a profit centre of a business.
Challenges in social service
Integrating social media into customer care requires more than a copy-paste strategy. Agents providing social customer service are expected to have a less scripted and more autonomous manner of dealing with customers. Thanks to the transparency of social media customer care, mistakes are quickly visible together with unequal service levels between channels. Measuring performance requires setting, and frequently adjusting, KPIs to reflect actual needs.
Outsourcing potentials
Outsourcing social customer service is on the rise as external contact centres
add social media capacity and companies look to save costs and add expertise
in a technically challenging field. Finding the right match requires companies to identify their own needs and parallel this with an outsourcer that can listen, engage, and act
as needed.
When outsourcing calls
Successful outsourcing relationships often start after a company analyses its online community, realizes the limitations of staffing, methodology, and technology, and then begins looking for partners who are more experienced with social customer service. Outsourcing social media customer care is seen as a timesaving and cost-efficient solution, done by experts on the field of social customer relationship management. It works best when social customer service is integrated with the other relationship channels.
The right partnership in social media enables a company to think big, start small,
and scale quickly.

Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Contents
Introduction: Can you hear me?
The evolution of social media customer service
Three phases in social media customer service
Trends in social customer service
Current challenges in social customer service
Outsourcing social customer service:
What both parties really want
Opportunity in outsourcing social customer service:
Putting the parts together
References
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3 · Introduction: Can you hear me?
Introduction: Can you hear me?
“Yes, I can hear you loud and clear, sir. How may I help you?” Customer service agents use these lines every day in company contact centres. These simple sentences show that customers have dialled the right number and are about
to get the expected service within their chosen time frame. But this is so yesterday
as we see that customer behaviour is changing. Instead of just calling a phone number, they are getting more connected and more social. Are you sure that you are still able to hear these customers?
It’s the customer, not the channel
Goodbye private, hello public conversation
Thanks to social media, customers are more empowered and more demanding. They require 24/7 customer care and a multi-channel approach. They understand that if a company can’t provide the service, they will simply switch to a competitor. Research shows that due to a negative customer care experience, 66% of respondents switched to another company in the previous year. Of this group, 82% felt that the company should have done more to prevent them from leaving.
Customer care is evolving and companies needs to adapt to these changes. It is no longer about answering incoming questions on the phone or responding to emails. Customers now demand service on multiple channels ranging from social channels such as Facebook to independent review sites. They expect communication on their terms and on their preferred channels – and 42% expect this response within one hour on social media. This customer- centric reality is doing more than forcing traditional customer care to change, it is also
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, once stated that a brand is “what people say about you when you’re not
in the room.” However, this ‘room’ is no longer private,
a change that brings challenges and also opportunities to an organization. When the ‘room’ is no longer private, each member of a community is empowered to help make or break an online reputation. Companies that have not adapted their social customer service to the new public reality
are being left behind. As the owners of Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro unwillingly illustrated, their Facebook meltdown went global. On the positive side, social media provides many opportunities for gaining valuable information about customers. When customers are talking about their favourite brand, they are providing feedback not just for the customer care department,
and also a resource for sales, marketing, HR, and PR
providing new opportunities for companies to learn from these interactions.
Being social is no longer
an option in customer care
departments. Furthermore, as KLM airline recently showed, connecting with people in real time thanks
to social media shows a company is empowered
to surpass expectations and surprise customers.
Social customer service allows companies
to personalize customer care and, in the meantime, strengthen brand awareness throughout the whole community. Research shows that 23% of customers are more likely to do business with a company that they can interact with in a social media environment. It is no longer a nice-to-have; two-way social communication is a necessity if a company wants
to survive in the digital era. Stop hiding behind toll- free numbers, static offline sales and marketing strategies, and get social with customers.
Customers expect open, two-way communication with brands, or they will take their business elsewhere – after telling friends about the issue.
Social customer service is not a cost, it is a gold mine
of data about customers and their online behaviour.
Summary

4 · The evolution of social media customer service
The evolution of social media customer service
Social media customer care is simply providing customer care via a social media channel such as Facebook or Twitter. The move towards implementing social media customer care has several distinct evolutionary stages, driven by both technological possibilities and consumer acceptance. It began in 2008 when Frank Eliason, director of digital care at Comcast, responded to a customer inquiry on Twitter.
In the years since, companies from a range
of industries such as British Telecom (BT), KLM
or Telefonica O2 have started to engage with customers on social media networks and begun
using their Twitter feeds and Facebook walls
to respond to customer inquiries.
Customer care shifts towards
social media
2014 - The year of integration
Members of the Future Care Initiative, a global non- profit of senior customer care executives, indicated in a recent survey that integrating social customer service into contact centres is one of their highest priorities for 2014. Gartner predicted that the growth in this social customer service space will peak
by the second half of 2014. Led by the three
leading sectors of telecommunications, airlines
and the financial sector, growth is expected
to continue through 2015 and beyond as more companies follow the lead of early adopters.
Not all of this expanded customer social service will be provided in-house. According to Forrester, 28% of companies had already outsourced or were very interested in outsourcing their customer service operations in 2012. This trend continued throughout 2013 as Forrester found that “outsourcing provided by both global outsourcers and new technology providers continued to gain market share, as each outsourcing model attempted to find its niche.”

5 · Three phases in social media customer service
Three phases in social media customer service
Anti-social Marketing goes social Social is everywhere
• Facebook walls closed
• Twitter channels unresponsive
to customer inquiries
• Companies respond only to crisis
situations
(2006–2009)
• Social customer care is provided by only
a few companies, mostly by their marketing teams
• Solutions are moved from social to private
conversations
• Customer Service is considered a cost-centre
rather than a competitive differentiator
(2010–2013) (2014–?)
Customer service, now seen as a competitive differentiator,
becomes omni-channel as customers no longer distinguish
between individual communication channels. Social becomes
integrated with emails, web chats, calls and messaging services.
Social customer service is provided by all customer-facing
companies, primarily by their contact centres.
BUSINESS experience:
Scared of social. Resort
to locking social and directing
customers to traditional
channels.
• Social customer service lives in a silo
• Managed independently from all other
channels
• Manageable only at certain volumes
• Mostly managed using marketing tools
• Customer service agents are trained to provide fast and
accurate responses regardless of the incoming channel.
Customer service costs decrease.
CUSTOMER experience:
• Customers increasingly use social media as a first-instance
customer service channel
• Customers stop distinguishing between individual channels
such as texting, Skype calling, chats (WhatsApp, iMessage,...)
and social media – They use the same omni-channel process
for communicating with friends and businesses.
Voicing concerns on social,
but with no expectation
of an answer.
Customers begin to use social to reach
companies but still often use it as
a channel of last resort and for
the worst cases.
Over 1 billion people log in to social networks at least once a month. Customers
are mobile with Facebook and other social media developing into their primary
communication channel with the world.
Most customer-facing brands have launched their social media profiles, enabling
customers to engage directly with them. Marketing departments dedicate new resources
for responding to queries as an increasing number of customers start using social
networks to reach out to brands.
With the number of customer service interactions doubling year-on-year and customers
increasingly taking social customer service as a given, companies face challenges to keep
up the speed and quality levels of their social customer service.
Customers do not distinguish between using a phone, email or social media to resolve
their service issues, therefore companies must be able to deal with customer issues
across channels.
Marketing departments are no longer able to handle the volume of customer service re-sponsibilities,
so companies integrate social customer service within their contact centres.
1. 2. 3.

Airlines lead the flock
into social customer service
Customers now drive
and shape brand identity
The airline industry, with a Facebook response rate of over 79%, remains the market leader in social customer service although the finance and telecommunication industries are closing the gap, according to Socialbakers research from 2013. KLM holds
the lead position for the speed of its Facebook responses, now averaging just 45 minutes. Its social responsiveness is integrated into the airline’s overall brand image. In general, companies respond
on Facebook more quickly than on Twitter – and much more quickly to social media than email.
Brand Embassy research shows that customers wait 13 hours longer for an email response than for
a Facebook answer (23 compared to 10 hours on
average). In many cases, customers continue reaching out to brands on social media while they wait for a response to queries previously submitted via traditional customer care channels such as email.
The rapid growth of Facebook, Twitter and other
social user-based networks over the past years
has fundamentally changed the dynamics of brand
management as companies lose control over what
is said about them in the public sphere. This change
is driven by social media empowering individuals
to communicate opinions and enabling the quick formation of groups which can express their collective opinions and reach a massive cumulative influence.
Up until recently, companies largely controlled
the customer care experience and also chose the care channels for customer interactions. When a customer calls a traditional help desk, the conversation between the individual and the service agent almost never goes public – regardless of sentiment, length or a problem.
Social media transforms the user-brand conversation into a public experience. On all social media channels, the conversations are effectively a public declaration of company’s customer-centric
(or anti-customer-centric) philosophy.
Customers have realized this as they make social media their preferred communication channel. Not only
is social media comfortable and user-friendly, customers are well-aware that their comments cannot easily be ignored since they stay public and accessible
to many other customers. This changes the role
of customer care from being a simple cost-centre
into a strategic component of the brand’s identity
and a powerful differentiator from competitors.
Get it all together. Look at how airlines, particularly KLM, combine social media for customer service, marketing,
and reputation building.
Tip

Forget the script,
just do the right thing
10 Stats to Remember
9 billion
Companies spend $500bn a year on marketing while just $50bn is spent on CRM and only $9bn on customer care (Genesys).
71%
71% of customers who experience
a quick and effective brand response
on social media are likely to recommend that brand to others, compared to just
19% of customers who do not receive
a response. (NM Incite)
36
Only 36% of customers that make customer care enquiries via social media report having their issue solved quickly
and effectively (NM Incite).
Customers 18 to 29-years-old are more likely to use the brand’s social media site for customer care interactions (43%) rather than for marketing (23%). (J.D. Power and Associates social media Benchmark Study)
42
The average number of people a social customer will tell about a good customer experience. (American Express® Global customer service Barometer).
40%
of unresolved complaints through social media resulted in phone calls (ClickFox)
53
The average number of people a social customer will tell about a bad customer experience. (American Express® Global customer service Barometer)
32%
of social customers expect a response within 30 minutes; 42% expect a response within 60 minutes. (Social Habit)
73%
of top performing companies identified customer care as a top reason to invest into social media monitoring (Gleanster)
When companies engage and respond
to customer care requests over social media, those customers end up spending 20% to 40% more with the company.
The informal language used for communicating
on social media has influenced the tone of communication between brands and customers. The traditional formal tonality and strict manual guidelines used
for handling customer care queries is no longer
appreciated by consumers.
Social media is a public arena so act like the whole world is listening in – they probably are.
Summary
“The increasing decentralisation of the service
experience – service at the edges – together with its increasingly participative and voyeuristic nature, was met with a growing expectation from customers for a more empathetic, humane and intimate type of customer
interaction. A customer interaction that was neither scripted nor time-bound, but underpinned by a sense
of serendipity and a desire to simply ‘do the right thing’.”
–Guy Stephens, IBM, Future Care Initiative

8 · Category
As consumers and their smartphones upset the applecart of customer service, there are many unresolved technical issues about where the industry is headed and strategic uncertainty about the larger implications on brand development. Based on hundreds of interviews with leading brands in the social customer service space and with contact centres across Europe, we’ve identified the five key trends which experts have mentioned most often.
1. Agile customer care is now
omni-channel
3. Start listening to customers
on social media
4. Customer care creates revenue, not costs
2. Integrate social with internal CRM
“Thank you for reaching us here. Please call our toll-free number 800-123-392 to resolve your inquiry” is no longer an adequate response. Social customers don’t want to receive a generic response as above and they don’t want to be bothered by company inflexibility. The traditional multi-channel approach which supports multiple inbound customer touch-points but is unable to resolve issues without re-routing a customer is both disliked and inefficient. Customers now require agile customer care where any issue can be solved over Facebook, Twitter
or other preferred customer channels.
With the rapid adoption of social media across nearly all demographic user segments (i.e. 50% of
45-54-year old people are on social media), customer care is going through a revolution. Modern contact centres are now able to proactively listen to customer inquiries across various digital channels. By gaining real-time insights on what topics are resonating on social media across various customer segments, companies can tailor their marketing messages and increase engagement and consequently raise their word-of-mouth impact.
Customer care departments are traditionally consi-
dered a necessary expense, a cost of keeping customers. However, social customer contact centres do much more, saving terabytes of data every day about customer inquiries, complaints, and recommendations. By recording the reasons for customer satisfaction and dissatisfying individual customer segments over time, contact centres are a unique data resource for modern knowledge management systems. This places
the customer care centre – and its data – at the backbone of any successful marketing and sales activity.
Social networks are not an anonymous environment. People make the choice to build their real social profiles so they can communicate better with friends and relatives. Companies that deploy a social CRM system which taps into these details are creating
a completely new playing field for customer care and marketing. A social CRM typically stores customer conversation history, segments customers according to their interests and attitudes towards the company, and develops other customized differentiators. By integrating traditional CRM data from internal systems (customer purchase histories) with social CRM data, companies are able to provide better customer care and more precisely targeted content.
–Vit Horky, CEO Brand Embassy, Founder Future Care Initiative
5. Customers are already
on Facebook and Twitter
Customer behaviour has changed. While 4 out
of every 10 customers would use social networks to solve service issues nowadays, only 3 out of 10 will pick up the phone and call a customer hotline. With over 1 billion people active on social media, customers increasingly use Facebook pages and Twitter channels as customer care touch-points.
This trend originated in Western European countries and the US, is spilling over to CEE and APAC regions, and will be a fundamental global reality by end 2014. Customers are already on Facebook and Twitter.
Not responding to them is like hanging up
on a customer hotline call – the result is a loss
of customer trust and loyalty.

9 · Current challenges in social customer service
Current challenges in social customer service
Given that social customer service is a necessity, companies are understandably seeking to launch this service as soon as possible.
However, before rolling out social customer care, it is important to plan for the potential challenges and roadblocks that lay ahead. BlueLink, with its experience in providing customer relationship management and social customer service, has found that companies cannot simply copy–paste their existing customer service strategy onto social media. There are many challenges which companies must face when extending customer care to social platforms. Because customer care is very transparent on social media, it’s important for companies to look at the following points before they leap.
Create the right tone of voice
Provide agents with autonomy
It is very difficult for customer care agents to find
the right tone of voice for responding to questions on social media. The primary issue is finding the correct balance between the brand image and the sentiment of the question posted on social media. Each company has its unique brand voice and values that it would like displayed in all customer touch-points. However, each customer also has his or her own demands
and expectations which must be met every time.
There is no template available which can ensure
that all responses are perceived as an accurate extension of the brand. Each question and complaint posted on social media has to be individually analysed
and treated. The key to this is ensuring that agents
understand the real sentiment of the questions
on social media.
Agents should have the possibility to act on their own authority. To endorse this level of autonomous behaviour, agents should be trained to recognize
the right sentiment of the questions and complaints and to respond in line with the brand image.
When the agents are trained to respond like robots,
the brand image will suffer and customers will
not feel appreciated or listened to. Companies need
to create a basic response structure with
–Joris van der Spek, BlueLink expert social
customer service
KPIs are essential, but only useful if they measure
the desired outcome. Start with basic measurements, discuss the results, and fine-tune them over time.
Tip

10 · Current challenges in social customer service
the possibility of adding a personal or funny note to the response. In this way, companies can demonstrate that social customer service is not carried out by robots and that they are able to provide personalized social customer service in-line with
the brand image.
It is important to create Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to track progress and analyse where service can be improved. However, it is a complex process
to set up KPI’s for social customer service and requires an ongoing internal discussion on what are the most effective KPIs to analyse progress on social customer service. For instance, the time between when a question was posted and the first response
by the agent is called the response time. However, this time measurement does not say anything about bringing a solution to the question.
Even though a company has the quickest response time in the industry, its agents may still need several responses to bring customers a complete solution
– which is a dramatically different answer.
If a company focuses on the first-touch resolution, response time will be lower, however, the time spend per question can be higher overall. To avoid mistakes, companies should begin by setting up basic KPIs
and expect to adjust them along the way.
Social media is just one channel through which
a brand provides customer care. However,
this is the only customer care touch-point which
is completely transparent for the world to see.
The difficulty is to align social customer service with the overall customer care strategy to ensure that
the same level of care is provided across all channels. Brands often tend to be more ‘giving’ on social media, because they are afraid of the potential negative buzz. However, there is a risk that when a specific customer service is provided on social media and this care is not maintained or offered on other channels,
it causes customers to walk away. It is important
to have a consistent brand experience over all
touch-points and not make promises on a social channel which cannot be maintained on all other channels.
Once social customer service has been successfully integrated, it is important to tap all available CRM data to build a 360 degree view of a customer.
This requires that the customer care team be equipped with a tool which makes it relatively easy
to create and maintain social CRM data for insights into customer behaviours on social networks and
to create the appropriate response to their questions and complaints. The correct data also enables
the customer care centre to more effectively scale out the level of customer service.
After all perimeters have been established and each agent knows exactly how to respond to all kinds
of questions and complaints, start over.
This is the time for a company to analyse the complete response structure and see how target groups react to their responses. The review process reveals
a great deal about how social customer service
is being perceived. The utility of this data goes
beyond the customer service department; it also assists marketing teams, sales teams and even
the HR department. When a company puts
significant focus on their social customer service, over time this company will slowly evolve into
a truly social enterprise.
Setting up KPIs
Multi-channel approach:
keeping is critical
Analyze and restructure
Social CRM: use the right tool
People – Give agents the autonomy to communicate
like real people. Customers will appreciate the change.
Technology – Merging social and internal CRM systems
and data is key to unlocking the value in social customer service.
Summary

11 · Outsourcing social customer service: What both parties really want
Outsourcing social customer service:
What both parties really want
Outsourcing social customer service is a little known phenomena,
even though the number of suppliers is increasing and is expected to grow further.
From an outsourcing perspective, 26% of outsourcers are planning to invest
in social media web chat and mobile (Deloitte), with companies such
as the Mumbai-based 24/7 Customer announcing plans to hire some 5,000 social
and interactive media advisers in India.
It takes two to tango
When implementing an outsourced social customer service, numerous challenges are evident from both
an operational and cultural perspective. In terms of the approach, a contact centre outsourcer must strive
to provide social as part of a fully integrated customer care package rather than a standalone solution. Outsourcers have the responsibility to clearly understand and communicate where their expertise best adds value to the potential business relationship. Above all, successful outsourcing requires a joint approach between the outsourcer and
the company. Points of potential vulnerability that must be clearly defined by both parties which include the following:
The key to this is the working relationship between both the contact centre outsourcer and the client company.
It requires open lines of communication, trust between all parties, clarity around performance targets, and clear ownership of critical processes.
Clarity and ownership of process
Realistic and aligned SLAs
Decision making around escalation
and handover
Tone of voice and customer empathy
Talking points for outsourcing discussions should include performance targets, ownership of critical processes,
and technology integration.
Tip

When a company considers outsourcing and
when a contact centre looks to provide such
a service, the following considerations must
be thought through:
Company consideration Outsourcers considerations
Cost of entry to set up in-house function
Transparency of outsourcer
service provisions
Right expertise, best practice, legal
and regulatory requirements
Changing technology platforms
and pace of customer adoption
Security and privacy issues,
robust governance framework
24/7 national/global operational
requirements
Working relationship with clients,
open lines of communication
Viable pricing model that provides clear
benefits to a client’s business
Integration with client’s existing
CRM systems
Right expertise, best practice, robust
governance framework
Working relationship with outsourcer, brand
image and reputation, clear lines
of ownership
Ability to align with (and enhance) client’s
brand image and reputation
Source: IBM, 2013

Is the company facing an increasing volume of comments across social channels?
Is there a high proportion of transactional customer interactions?
Is the company already engaging on social channels but looking to either scale
and automate due to a volume increase
or to shift social channel ownership
from marketing to customer care?
Does the company have the agents with the right skill set or the capacity to add social into their existing customer care channel mix?
From the perspective of service centre providers, companies should consider how they meet these criteria before initiating an outsourcing relationship:
In parallel, companies need to look for an outsourcer which is agile, flexible, constantly learning,
and able to clearly illustrate how they will add
value to the business.
There is no doubt that outsourcing is a viable proposition given the right conditions and working relationship between companies and the outsourced care centre. But outsourcing social customer service is clearly a work in progress, points out Martin
Hill-Wilson of Brainfood Consulting. “The reality is that there are still very few completely joined-up solutions.
Companies like Avaya, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, etc., will say that they have had a social capability for a good couple of years, by which they mean they can take a feed from a social channel, put it through their unified queue, prioritise it based on something like Klout and you’ve got social.” Successful outsourcers have typically adopted a modular three-stage approach which can be summarised as – listen, engage, act. This approach focuses on social monitoring, social data analysis, community management and providing front line triage. While these descriptions can be characterised as rudimentary, they also illustrate that there
is no 100% off-the-shelf solution available.
Listen. Engage. Act.
Outsourcing is growing as external contact centres add social media capacity and companies look to save costs and add expertise. Finding the right match requires companies to identify their needs and parallel this with
a suitable outsourcer.
Summary

14 · Opportunity in outsourcing social customer service: Putting the parts together
Opportunity in outsourcing social customer service:
Putting the parts together
At first glance, outsourcing social customer service brings more questions and worries than solutions and confidence, primarily because
it’s about giving a delicate part
of the client-business relationship
to an external entity. However,
some outsourcing companies are
no strangers to these issues
as they were part of the first wave of integrating social media into customer relationship management.
Outsourcing vs keeping it in-house
It’s a question of finding
the right partner
strategies would not be enough to keep fans
connected to brands, BlueLink decided that offering
social customer service would bring real help and value to brands’ user communities.
As a result, while some brands were still convinced that the best strategy was to keep their social customer service in-house, integrated into the marketing and communication departments, others began
working with an outsourcer partner in customer relationship management to strengthen their social presence. These companies typically had limited communication and marketing resources to provide a real social customer service experience. In addition, the outsourcers came with a global perspective and experience due to their multi-brand DNA: do’s and don’ts, best practices, return on investment
experience, and KPI measurements aligned with market standards. In this context, outsourcing social customer service began as a timesaving and efficient cost solution, done by experts on the social customer service field. Outsourcers also brought an expert overview to social customer service:
their eco-systems enabled them to advise clients
on the best-in-class technologies and implement tested social customer service methodologies.
care strategy, it must be aligned with customer service across all other channels. The same perspective applies when a company looks for
an outsource provider of social customer services:
The outsourcer must be aligned with the company’s customer care strategy.
A discussion on outsourcing should begin with these key topics:
Social customer service is not a standalone project that can exist separate from a company’s customer
Where is the company’s online community?
How does this community fit into
the company’s customer care strategy?
How can this service support
the branding strategy?
Where can the online community
be reached?
What ‘language’ does the online
community speak?
Which technologies can assist in reaching out an online community?
How can open communication pathways be created between partners and internal teams that meet the company needs in terms
of features, analytics, reporting and budget?
In 2005, when the Facebook phenomenon appeared and brands were wondering if they should participate in this platform or not, some outsourcing companies were convinced that social media would deeply change the business-client relationship models.
BlueLink, an expert in outsourcing customer relationship management, believed that social media would become part of the future relationship channel
offering. As traditional commercial and marketing
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
–Sylvie Ramaroson, BlueLink Group

15 · Opportunity in outsourcing social customer service: Putting the parts together
Answers to these subjects need to be worked out with contributions from the internal communication, marketing and customer service teams. Once their inputs have been incorporated, a company will have
a sufficiently detailed map of the desired scope
and goals before questioning a potential outsourcing partner. These direct questions should focus
on uncovering their level of development and expertise by looking at active skills, operations, successes and concrete results in KPIs.
Three paths to outsourcing
Outsourcing issues
in an omni-channel world
There are three basic situations where companies have decided to outsource their social customer service:
They started to manage social customer service internally, but it was not launched
or prepared as a project. It all started with the community manager, however this individual did not have the right skills to do social customer service. After several months,
the workload is now over internal capacities and the community is not satisfied.
The company has not started to offer social customer service yet, but they intend to do so. However, they don’t have the internal agility to move forward or the right methodology
to drive the project to success.
markets which they can’t do internally. Another scenario is that they would like
to extend social customer service to a wider time frame of 24/7. Outsourcing could be the solution to support extended customer service hours (particularly true for airlines).
They launched and managed social customer care well, but now they need to provide languages and cultural sensitivity to local
1.
2.
3.
Besides advantages, there are also some disadvantages to outsourcing social customer service.
The primary disadvantage is from outsourcing only social customer service, with all others channels managed internally. As stated, social customer service is not an independent service, living apart from other relationship channels. Customers are now well versed in various technologies and now instinctively skip
between channels. Forrester research found that 90% of adults will use 3 different devices
to complete a simple task such as booking a restaurant or buying a pair of shoes. Assistance provided
by chat, email, phone and social media must be fully consistent across all channels. To prevent any perception of disruption, the social customer service team must connect daily with internal customer service teams and should be seen publicly as a unique customer service team, regardless of the specific channel.
For effective outsourcing, a company does not face these issues alone. By partnering with the right partner, a company is able to think big, start small,
and scale fast. If you would like additional answers
to your questions about outsourcing your social customer service, do not hesitate to contact BlueLink international. We are an expert in providing the best of customer relationship management in a package specially designed to fit your needs.
If you are looking for a technology partner
to integrate social media into your contact centre,
just request a free demo of Brand Embassy,
the leading social media customer service software. This SaaS product is used by over 50 large international companies in the airline, banking, fashion, insurance, and telecommunication sectors.
Outsourcing social media customer care can
be a timesaving and cost-efficient solution and works
best when social customer service is integrated with
the other relationship channels. Finding the right social partner enables a company to think big, start small,
and scale quickly.
Summary
Thank you for not outsourcing
your reading today.
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16 · Authors & Partners
About the Authors Partners
Joris van der Spek
Martin Svarc
Guy Stephens Sylvie Ramaroson
Vit Horky
Joris is a graduate in change management and a change
management consultant. He has focused on digital marketing
and everything related to digital. Joris found that digital
is a fast changing environment where he could slake his thirst
for change and improvement. He stepped into the sector
as a project manager in digital marketing for Nissan West
Europe. After this experience, Joris came on board with BlueLink
to assist them with their multi-channel approach on customer
relationship management.
As commercial director of Brand Embassy, Martin builds
the business case for fusing customer service with social media.
Before joining Brand Embassy in 2013, Martin worked in several
internet and media companies including Adform, Boomerang
Publishing, and Havas Worldwide.
Brand Embassy brings customer service to social media with
its SaaS platform for managing service inquiries posted
on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. Brand Embassy
software is used by Vodafone, Telefonica O2, T-Mobile, KIA, ING,
Prezi, GE Money and other leading companies. Winner
of the Red Herring Europe Award 2013, Brand Embassy
was founded in Prague, the Czech Republic, and has offices
in Dubai, Latin America, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, the United
Kingdom, and the United States. Try a 14-day free trial at
www.brandembassy.com.
Future Care Initiative is a global invite-only community of senior
customer service and social media executives with a mission
to drive innovation in the social customer service industry via
knowledge sharing, learning and networking. Members are from
leading companies such as Citi, HP, IBM, Teleperformance,
and UPC. Apply for membership at www.futurecareinitiative.com.
Expert in customer relationship management, the BlueLink
Group provides companies a multilingual offer, strengthened
by a model of sites interconnected throughout the world.
Solid and flexible, this structure enables BlueLink to assist
organizations in their customer relationship management,
all coordinated by one dedicated contact. Our organization
emphasizes proximity and long-term partnership, essential
qualities for bringing brands and their customers a relationship
focused on personalized service. BlueLink operates in the air
transport, tourism, luxury, banking and insurance, health,
culture, and leisure sectors.
www.bluelinkservices.com
Guy is a Social Business/Social Customer Care Managing Consult-ant
at IBM. He has 14 years of experience in digital media, the last
six years focusing on social. Prior to IBM, Guy worked at
CapGemini and before this at The Carphone Warehouse and Mars,
Inc. He was recently voted one of the Top 100 Global Customer
Service Pros on Twitter by The Huffington Post, and has been
described by Dr Dave Chaffey as ‘one of the world’s leading think-ers’
in this space. He now works with organisations helping them
navigate through their social business/customer care journey.
With more than 20 years of experience, Sylvie has a deep breadth
of expertise covering all domains and functions in customer
relationship management. After several years at BlueLink,
she joined the general management to manage strategic projects
such as implementing multi-site operations for major airline
and hospitality brands. As the head of the industrial branch
of BlueLink, she managed the opening of the Sydney
and Mauritius Island centres. Afterwards, she became
the Innovation & Marketing Director in September 2013. Her main
mission is to inspire and support brands to meet the changes
in customer relations by catching in-depth trends, tailoring them
to fit each brand’s universe, and driving them to concrete results
for their business stakes.
In 2011, Vit co-founded Brand Embassy when he turned 25 due
to his frustration with the agency world. Brand Embassy,
a Red Herring awarded social media customer care technology
firm, recently launched a $1M seed round and opened up 6 world
offices. Vit is a founding member of Future Care Initiative,
a global invite-only community of senior customer service
and social media executives who want to drive innovation
in customer service industry. Vit founded his first company,
Inspiro Solutions, a Prague-based digital creative agency,
at the age of 17. He likes to play beach-volleyball every Tuesday
and people say he should sleep more.

17 · References
References
Accenture Global Consumer Pulse research, 2013
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/ PDF/Accenture-Global-Consumer- Pulse-Research-Study-2013-Key-Findings.pdf
American Express® Global customer care Barometer
http://about.americanexpress.com/news/ pr/2012/gcsb.aspx
Bain & Company, 2009, Mobile Internet for growth: project report phase 1
http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/mobile- internet-for-growth-project-report-phase-1.aspx
Buzfeed, 2013
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/this-is- the-most-epic-brand-meltdown-on-facebook-ever
Deloitte And callcentre.co.uk Outsourcing Survey 2012: Are Clients And Outsourcers Speaking The Same Language, Deloitte [2012]
http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom- UnitedKingdom/Local%20Assets/Documents/ Services/Consulting/uk-consulting-deloitte-and- call-centre.pdf
Digital Buzz, 2011
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-the- growth-of-social-media-2011/
Forrester, 2014
http://blogs.forrester.com/kate_leggett/13-01- 14-forresters_top_15_trends_for_customer_ service_in_2013
Gleanster, 2012
http://www.gleanster.com/report/how-top- performers-use-social-data-to-improve-customer- service-and-support
JD Power, 2013
http://www.jdpower.com/content/press-release/ ubVb9GW/2013-social-media-benchmark-study. htm
KLM Surprise
http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=pqHWAE8GDEk
Mashable, 2009
http://mashable.com/2009/04/17/web-in- numbers-social-media/
NM incite, 2012
http://www.slideshare.net/NMIncite/state-of- social-customer-service-2012
Should You Outsource social media Or Do It Yourself:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ capitalonespark/2013/03/19/should-you- outsource-social-media-or-do-it-yourself/
social media Customer Engagement: Strategic Planning Considerations for Contact Centre Organisations, Executive Brief Commissioned by Frost & Sullivan
http://www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2012/02/frost_sullivan_social_media_ customer_engagement_white_paper.pdf
Social media Outsourcing – Changing The customer care Game:
http://www.theoutsourcing-guide.com/article/ social-media-outsourcing/
Social (S)caring Brands by Brand Embassy, 2012 http://www.brandembassy.com/market-insights/ social-scaring-brands-uk
Socially Devoted by socialbakers, 2014
http://sociallydevoted.socialbakers.com/
Survey: Edison research, 2012
http://www.slideshare.net/webby2001/the-socialhabit-2012-by-edison-research
This was 2013 in social media, Customer Think, 2013
http://customerthink.com/this-was-2013-on- social-media/
The social Habit, 2012, Are Consumer expectations for social customer care realistic? http://socialhabit.com/uncategorized/customer- service-expectations/

18 · Category
Sylvie Ramaroson
SRamaroson@bluelinkservices.fr
horky@brandembassy.com
Vit Horky

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