The Rise of Social Networking and Emerging Channels in Customer Service (Strategic Focus)

NEW YORK --(Business Wire)-- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue.

The Rise of Social Networking and Emerging Channels in Customer Service (Strategic Focus) http://www.reportlinker.com/p0120039/The-Rise-of-Social-Networking-and-Emerging-Channels-in-Customer-Service-(Strategic-Focus).html Introduction Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher use social networking services, making headlines across the globe and raising consumer awareness of these emerging communications channels. But some leading edge companies have started to offer customer service and support through social media.

Scope *Primary research consisting of interviews with providers of social networks, social media monitoring tools and contact center infrastructure suites.

*Direct interviews with providers of telecommunications services, CRM suites, knowledge management applications and systems integration services.

*Extensive secondary research drawing from the mainstream press, technology trade journals and academic journal articles.

Highlights This report examines the potential market for customer service provided through online social networking and how that customer service might be expanded to formal contact centers. It looks at the trends driving customer service on social networking sites and provides case studies of current use cases.

Additionally, it examines the technological and cultural barriers to having formal contact centers handling social media-driven customer service interactions, as well as the benefits of doing so. It also presents a potential competitive landscape, breaking down vendors that might have a role in this future market.

Reasons to Purchase *Understand the current use of social media for providing customer service.

*Learn how companies can benefit from bringing social media into their contact centers.

*Learn which companies will help facilitate contact center's adoption of social media.

Overview 1 Catalyst 1 Summary 1 Key Messages 2 Social networking usage is exploding 2 Companies are capitalizing on online social networking as a tool for marketing 2 Companies have started to use social networking for customer service 2 Customer interaction technology vendors have an opportunity to help provide scalability 2 Social media interactions in the contact center would provide visibility and accountability 2 Contact center-provided customer service through social networking is the Wild West 3 Table of Contents 4 Table of figures 5 Table of tables 5 Market opportunity 6 Barriers to adoption of social media in contact centers 7 Technological issues create barriers 8 Treating social media like just another channel 8 Problems with scaling up enough to meet growing demand 9 Difficulty in understanding the intent of social media messages 9 Figuring out which networks to target 10 Process and cultural issues must be addressed 11 Giving up a sense of control 11 Specialist pools vs. contact center 11 Enterprises need to develop a personality 12 Training social skills to anonymous agents 12 Inability to outsource social media operations 13 Cooperation between marketing and contact center 13 Large set of potential benefits of social media-based customer service 13 Deepening customer intimacy 14 Customers get instant gratification 14 Customers helping each other 14 Higher self-service rates 15 Different demographics 15 Powering inexpensive outbound alerts 15 Customer Impact: four emerging channels explored 17 Twitter-140 characters, but a big voice 17 @Comcastcares 20 @WholeFoods 20 @VirginAmerica 20 @MountainViewPD 21 @magiccurrykart 21 Facebook-vampires, food fights and customer self-service 22 Dented Reality 22 Glocalnet 23 Coca-Cola 23 Google-general search as a tool for service 23 Second Life-support and commerce go virtual 24 Competitive Landscape 27 CRM and knowledge management vendors 27 Salesforce.com 27 Parature 28 Knowledge management vendors 29 Social media monitoring vendors 30 Radian6 30 Contact center infrastructure vendors 30 Aspect Software 31 Avaya 31 Online social networks 31 Twitter 32 Facebook 32 Google 32 Get Satisfaction 33 Co-opetition will be the norm for now 33 Go to Market 34 Integration between different parts of the social media puzzle 34 Acquisition as an entrée into social media 35 Small to medium enterprises: underserved again? 36 Recommendations 36 Don't get hung up on the network 36 Recruit experts in change management 36 Don't be afraid of personality 37 Treat social media as cross-channel, not multi-channel 37 Use social networks 37 APPENDIX 39 Definitions 39 Methodology 39 Further reading 39 Ask the analyst 40 Datamonitor consulting 40 Disclaimer 40 List of Tables Table 1: Facebook's popularity around the world 22 List of Figures Figure 1: Twitter's ranking among most popular sites on the internet, February-April 2009 7 Figure 2: The online social media universe 10 Figure 3: Countries of origin of Twitter's users 18 Figure 4: The Twitter fail whale 19 Figure 5: Commerce in Second Life 25 Figure 6: The social media conversation cycle 34 To order this report: The Rise of Social Networking and Emerging Channels in Customer Service (Strategic Focus) http://www.reportlinker.com/p0120039/The-Rise-of-Social-Networking-and-Emerging-Channels-in-Customer-Service-(Strategic-Focus).html More market research reports here!

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