We all know about the usefulness of social media in brand-building, customer relationship enhancement, and the like. But according to John Gaffney in his recent piece for ClickZ, the real value of social networking will eventually lie in improved customer service.
John cites a number of examples, including the Mountain View police using Twitter to tell residents not to worry about the legitimacy of door-to-door census takers, and the Ford dealer in Chicago getting nearly instant notification of a customer griping about problems with his new Focus. It may be tempting to conclude from these that this is a B2C kind of solution. However, “Salesforce.com has introduced a tool that lets its users monitor, search and respond directly to comments on Twitter, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and other social media, directly from the Salesforce.com system.” And Salesforce’s customers are not primarily B2C companies.
Other tools such as Factiva, Nielsen Buzz Metrics, BoardReader and dozens more help automate social media conversation tracking. Says Laura Bassett, director of customer service solutions for Avaya: “The companies need to have a complete view of the customer, and now they can include social networks in that view.”
