[This guest post is from Ashley Furness, CRM Analyst for Help Desk Software Advice.]

 

Pop quiz: How long does it take your team to respond when a customer submits a service request on Twitter, Facebook or another social media channel?

1. One day.
2. We don’t respond.
3. Customers send support requests on social media?
4. What the heck is Twitter?

If you picked any of those responses (as most would according to one study), your company is falling dangerously short of customers’ expectations from social media. This is at least partially attributable to a functionality gap in “social listening” platforms. These systems monitor customer sentiment but, until recently, did nothing to help companies respond in real time to service complaints voiced in social media.

Thankfully, developers have begun to wise up to this burgeoning need (and market opportunity). Here are four social media monitoring tools that go that extra step to identify, prioritize and route such problems so customer service teams can respond effectively.

Salesforce Social Hub

Salesforce.com launched The Social Hub last year after acquiring social monitoring platform Radian6. The system uses customized keyword identifiers to extract customer service requests from more than 150 million social networks, blogs, forums, and other sources. It scans for messages that combine #CompanyName, @CompanyName, and brand mentions with customer service-related triggers. This includes generic words like “help” or “need assistance,” or specific phrases like “My cable is out.”

These requests are then automatically prioritized according to content and the customer’s purchase history and social activity level. A computer manufacturer company might, for example, place higher value on a key social media influencer or brand advocate who recently purchased ten laptops, and bump his help request to the top of the queue.

Social Dynamx

Social Dynamx uses role-based interfaces to automate social message routing. The system considers agent expertise, work group, current caseload, average time to respond, and service satisfaction rate. The platform might, for example, choose a top service-rated agent to handle a strongly negative issue.

Users can easily change or add expertise as needed. Imagine if a company were suddenly flooded with tweets about a defect in a certain product. The customer service team could create a new work group and tag corresponding agents as the sole recipients for tweets related to that issue.

LiveOps Social

LiveOps Social is Cloud-based contact center software that processes social service requests exactly like tickets submitted through voice, email, or the Web. It searches for requests by Twitter hashtag or keyword, or by designated Twitter and Facebook accounts. Once LiveOps identifies a request, it creates a ticket that shows up in the service queue along with requests from other channels.

The work item is synchronized with other relevant customer data to prioritize the request, including service and social history. When an agent views the next work item routed to them they can see the overall context to understand a customer’s contact experience. As LiveOps continues to improve routing, a social request for example, might be flagged as critical if the system sees that customer called the hotline, emailed three hours ago, and just tweeted about how they couldn’t get ahold of anyone.

Social Media Spaces by Moxie Software

Many companies only respond to the angriest customer complaints posted on Twitter. This is a bad move, according to Moxie Software Marketing Vice President Tara Sporrer.

“You want damage control, but you don’t want to train your customers by only responding to irate messages,” she says. Usually, when customers are vocal on social media, it means that other more established communication channels have failed in providing them the support they needed. Finding the right balance takes constant trial and error.

Social Media Spaces allows supervisors to analyze social response data so they can constantly tweak prioritization and routing rules. The dashboard uses metrics such as social customer satisfaction, first contact resolution, and ticket rerouting rates.

Do What’s Right for Your Company

Ultimately, it doesn’t make sense for every company to invest heavily in social media support. Before making any major technology investment, it’s important your team conducts a thorough needs evaluation.

What kind of social customer service does your company practice? Do you use social listening technology like the ones mentioned here? Tell us about it by commenting below.

Research for this article was provided by help desk software reviewer Software Advice.

Be our next guest author!