Thank you for your thoughts and feedback. I think you make a great point that social media will have more growing pains with regard to customer service, and that it will have to be seamless with the other channels utilized today for service.

The Millennials will definitely have a large impact on how companies craft their customer experience strategies moving forward. Self-service can be a great tool if done effectively, which is something that hasn’t always happened based on the conversations I’ve had with other thought leaders in this space and also my own experience.

It will be interesting to see how this all continues to shake out, but I believe one thing is certain: this “experience” economy is here to stay until further notice. What’s peculiar to me anyway is why this wasn’t always the case.

Thanks again,
Chris

Is the integration of social media with customer care the future of our industry? Good question. If an agent bursts “out of the blue” into a customer chat offering a tweet that solves a customer issue, will it be viewed as helpful — or intrusive? The jury is out. Like all innovations, this one may well experience its growing pains before gaining due recognition in the marketplace.

One thing for certain: “Millennials,” the 80-million strong body of younger customers who’ve grown up on the Web and today embrace social media, have definite priorities when it comes to their service experience. It must be fast, reliable, accurate, and seamless across all channels: IVR, live agent, Web chat, e-mail, mobile and SMS. It must “know” each customer, leveraging business intelligence to integrate customer, product, billing and other data in real time, in each session. It must be proactive, providing instant, automated notification of account changes, flight delays and other events that impact their lives daily. Most Millennials, according to recent research by Convergys, actually prefer such automated self-service precisely because its flexibility and speed match their lifestyles.

All businesses now operate in the “experience” economy. Ensuring an outstanding experience through intelligent solutions is smart business.

Andrea Ayers
President – Customer Management
Convergys