I’ve just left the lush autumn of the Pacific Northwest, having visited Microsoft to talk social media shop with the leaders of their customer support group. Microsoft is working on some impressive social media tools, to be sure. But they were quick to point out that social media is about conversations FIRST, not the platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) or the management tools.
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It’s a point worth underscoring, especially for marketers. From the data we’ve gathered via our Social Media Maturity Diagnostic, we know that Marketing and/or Corporate Communications are leading the social media charge in large (i.e., Fortune 1000) enterprises 65% of the time. But when it comes to Customer Support involvement, more than 40% of large companies don’t involve support peers at all! In another 50%, they are only moderately involved. That’s a huge problem.
We in marketing are well pedigreed in one-way, brand-to-customer “conversations” (ha ha…ahem), but we’re straining new muscles when it comes to closing the back loop of the dialogue from customer to brand. Funny, then, that more marketers aren’t racing to collaborate with their customer support colleagues—perhaps the only group in the enterprise that has experience with scaling the return loop of customer conversations. Maybe that explains why marketers with high confidence in their social media approach are three times as likely to have customer support heavily involved.
We need our customer support brethren to build the right muscles for social media. Let them spot you.
MLC Members: Looking to expand your thinking on social media ideas that would tap your peers in customer support? Take a look at Pitney Bowes’ online user community in the MLC Social Media Showcase.
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