A European Telecommunications company wanted to lower its customer service operation costs but worried from the loss of revenue by doing so. In investigating its options, the company learned that 70 percent of existing customer-service contacts could be delivered through digital solutions that had proved effective in other industries. E-care involves the delivery of customer service via web-based user accounts, social networks, mobile phone, and the Internet rather than call centers or facilities open to the public. Such digital services are increasingly demanded by customers, who are already using digital platforms to research and review products, as well as broadcast their service frustrations. And it makes sense from a financial perspective, too. It has the potential to significantly lower the cost of customer service operations while increasing customer satisfaction. Not only this, but e-care also brings a company closer to its customers. Adopting e-care is worth the effort and that virtually every consumer-facing industry that has high customer-relationship needs can benefit from it. Read more at: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/why_companies_should_care_about_ecare

Social Media Analytics has become important nowadays. But, what is Social media analytics? It collects data from social media platforms and blogs, and do an analysis of the collected data to extract information which in turn will help any organization to take the right step. It also facilitates marketers with a detailed understanding of the consumer and also helps to analyze the sentiment of customers to augment marketing, branding, and customer service. MarketsandMarkets (a global market research and consulting company based in the U.S), have recently published a report about GLOBAL SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS MARKET - MARKET FORECASTS AND ANALYSIS (2014-2019) which will help the market leaders or new entrants in many ways. To know more about this, follow: http://www.fastmr.com/prod/871700_global_social_media_analytics_market_market.aspx?afid=302

Consumers these days are using social media for communications. Mention of brand names is done in huge numbers among which 76 percent mentions were neutral, 17.6 percent were positive and 5.8 percent were negative. . Majority of the neutral mentions comprises of queries about the company’s process and products.

Apart from increasing engagement, building brand awareness and marketing this study has been found to play a major role in customer service.  The names of companies are mentioned on social media more on weekdays than on weekends. Moreover most posts are mentioned in English followed by French and Spanish. Thus social media is a tool for global communication and social mentions increases exposure. Read more at:http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/social-media-equals-modern-day-customer-service-43281/

It’s the customer service and experience the customer that help businesses to retain customers and grow.  The companies which deliver a good customer service and experience are customer-centric putting the customer in the centre of decisions, ideas, marketing, system design and more. Companies like apple manufacture products that people don't even realise they need, and the packaging of their products adds to the customer’s experience, which makes them the leader in customer service. A company that delivers only a great customer experience won’t survive if the product or service the company sells doesn’t work or do what it’s supposed to do, so they have to manufacture high quality products as well as provide a great customer service. It’s the combination of the two, a great product and an amazing customer service experience, that can meet the expectations of the customers and make a company grow to the top of their industry. To know more go to: http://www.hyken.com/customer-experience-2/product-experience/#more-5264

 According to a survey of 900 business and IT executives from 70 countries by IBM Institute for Business Value study, Eighty percent of respondents are evaluating the impact of their analytics investments, 60 percent already have predictive analytics capabilities, and "leaders" who were perceived to be proactive in engaging analytics in their organizations were more than two times likely than average to have formal career paths for analytics professionals.The next generation of IT workers will work in highly automated environments that combine both in-sourced and out-sourced technologies that businesses will expect to get immediate value from. “We hire many of our people right out of college," said the CEO of a healthcare cloud analytics vendor. The intuition behind is that the company already possessed the internal analytics expertise to train these recruits, and the added advantage of hiring freshers is that it also gives the company an opportunity a to train these recruits in to customer service that is valuable to the company. To know more about this, go to: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/big-data-analytics/better-training-in-search-of-next-generation-it-workers/

Today call centers are becoming increasingly famous all over the world. Call centers play a vital part in most modern organizations, as they fulfill the need of creating a strong bond between a company and its customers. It is basically a place where inbound calls to the company are taken for customer service and support, while outbound calls to customers and clients are made for telemarketing. Taking the help of a company specializing in call center support will provide many benefits including: 1) saving money 2) saving time 3) providing expertise 4) better reputation. An expert call center gives protection to company and help build reputation. These benefits are required for many online companies and the best way to find a great call center is to compare the cost, reputation, such that any language barrier does not sustain between the countries. Read more at: 

http://serversitters.com/what-is-a-call-center-and-how-can-it-help-your-business.html

A recent survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit found that those who were polled believe that customer service and marketing is expected to gain most from analytics, but customer service is unprepared to deal with big data. Proper analytics of the brand will enable business houses to understand how their business is performing, whether they need any improvement or not.  An October 2013 Gartner report, Market Trends: Leveraging Analytics in Vertical Industries, identified four major categories of analytics: Descriptive, Diagnostic, Prescriptive, Predictive. Three ways in which analytics is transforming customer service: Analytics is encouraging organizations to break down barriers

Analytics is changing perceptions of important measurements

Analytics is allowing brands to get ahead

To know more about the three ways in which analytics is transforming customer service, go to:https://blog.zopim.com/2013/11/20/3-ways-analytics-transforming-customer-service/

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Three ways analytics can change customer service: (1)Barriers to the organizations are to be broken down as encouraged by Analytics: The multi-channel analytics is causing many brands to call their customer service technologies and processes frequently to break down data vaults and multi-channel support and reaction is centralized to avoid repetition of customer information. say of the customer, a 360-degree vision of the customer, makes analytics more convenient and insightful. (2) Changing awareness of chief Measurements by Analytics: Organizations are deviating from old methods such as rapidity to answer and quantity of calls handled per hour, and moving towards more important methods such as overall client pleasure, first call decision. (3) Allowance of analytics to   move ahead: Once the right analytical reports are collected organizations use them to improve their services and support. Using analytics an organizations can estimates what customers are wanting and expecting from their services. Read more at:

http://www.parature.com/customerservice-analytics/

Online chat is a better option compared to other customer service strategies like an email exchange or a personalized phone call. For live chat, some essential criteria have to be considered. First, it is important to ensure that the client or the user is registered on the company's website as all chat sessions would originate from the website of the company. Second, it is also important to know that whether inquiries being received are quick to answer or are detailed inquiries in order to continue with at least three chat sessions at a time. Third, the basic requirement is to have an operator during live chat sessions. Due to live chat sessions, a knowledge base of prepared responses gets build up which benefits in responding to customers faster and re-type the same answer, and thus there is a consistent communication between the company and customer. Read more at: http://managementhelp.org/blogs/customer-service/2010/06/04/customer-service-strategies-live-chat/ 

Unless one puts in the effort of being beside their customers they can never receive helpful word of mouth. In times of crisis if employees want to protect the company's reputation, they should instil a customer service culture, then empower staffs for making decisions, and perform properly in case of a problem. In times of crisis a briefing should be done to the frontline staffs about the crisis, which is a part of the crisis communication plan. This approach helps protecting one's reputation. Words of support from the directly affected people provides opportunity to enhance one's reputation further. There is no formula for gaining goodwill and loads of satisfied tweets and Facebook posts from customers. Frontline staffs as brand ambassadors and crisis communicators and hard work only pleases customers and satisfies them. Read more at:http://managementhelp.org/blogs/crisis-management/2010/12/13/crisis-management-customer-service/ 

Why we people do not get proper consumer service is the biggest question now. Apart from fast food joints the worst consumer treatment is acquired from the people who work for doctors, when ironically we should have got the best treatment there. In cases of emergencies where e require immediate attention we are told to fill forms moreover calls irritate you on confirming whether you would be able to clear the bills even if the insurance doesn’t. Apart from banks, medical customer service frustrates people with long calls and often hang them up. The only difference is that you speak with a live person instead. Then there are these unfriendly tools on the websites which assures you about the non occurrence of the problem again but if we had spend time searching every inch of the website this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. read more at:http://managementhelp.org/blogs/training-and-development/2012/03/07/poorest-customer-service-in-the-land-where-it-really-counts/ 

This is the 21st century and here everyone expects more from business interactions. Call center analytics is an efficient and quick way to gauge its overall approach to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Earlier, call recordings were thought to be an approach for analyzing customer demands. But due to its shortcomings like delays in recording and transcribing, has open doors to new methods. Every company seeks for newer methods to differentiate their customer service experience and optimizing it to the fullest level. A recent example is of Amazon Mayday Functionality which promises help from a real person with prior knowledge of functionality and the service is delivered with high quality video experience. With visual demonstrations it is easier to resolve the problems sometimes in matter of seconds. The greatest contribution for this technology is made by WebRTC supported on desktops and even android phones. It has proved itself successful providing the customers with the best they deserve. Read more about this aspect in Ashley Unitt (founder of NewVoiceMedia)'s article link: http://www.mewvoicemedia.com/blog/contace-centre-innovations

There are three modes of services available for customers, namely e-mail, live chat, and phone. Each of them has their own positives and negatives. E-mails are cheapest,\ and extremely useful for connecting globally. If solutions are not required immediately this can be the best platform with clear and written solutions, which are transferable. Customers do not have to deal with foreign accents or “on hold” waiting. Customers feel their importance and in this way a number of customers can be handled simultaneously. On the other side phone calls are better for people who want immediate support and are less technological forward. They get the solutions immediately and feel that their business is being appreciated. A helpful voice can calm and assure customers. Internet connection is not required. The type of medium selected depends on the type of client one faces. Usually sue to the fact that there can be multiple types of customers providing different forms of consumer support mediums is usually the best solution. Read more at:http://ezinearticles.com/?Email,-Phone-Or-Live-Chat-Support---How-to-Best-Serve-Your-Customers&id=3518663

Customer satisfaction is an important necessity for any organization to retain customers. Few basic rules of customer service includes firstly, integrity, the service provider should be honest and commit to the mistakes and also communicate ideas to correct such follies and such mistakes in future. Secondly, there is response time. It is essential that the customer service provider is able to explain the mistakes of the company through one to one communication or through e-mails in case of large customer circle in an effective way. Thirdly, there is realistic expectation. It is necessary that the consumers are satisfied with company's promises and delivery to retain customers in the long run. Thus, under promise and over deliver is the best policy. Fourthly we have respect. For customer satisfaction it is very important to respect and appreciate them and uphold their point of view. Hence these basic rules should be followed by any business house. Read more at :http://managementhelp.org/blogs/customer-service/2010/04/12/customer-service-basics/  

Service level, abandoned calls, productivity indicators, quality indicators, customer service are some of the key metrics typically used by a call center to measure data for customer complaints. For many businesses, retaining existing customers are cheaper than acquiring new customers. Customers become repeat purchasers usually because they believe that the services they buy are good value for money and the service they receive when contacting the firm is of optimal standard. Read more at:http://www.lieberandassociates.com/800_Number_Measurement_Metrics_Inbound_Customer_Service_Orders_Sales_Statistics.shtml 

Companies can maintain customer support department to answer customer doubts and problems in social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook. Answers to customers should be quick and within few hours of posting. We can implement softwares that can be synchronized with Facebook, to manage private messages and posts, and to keep track of customer service questions & problems and also to serve requests. Some of these softwares are Sales Force Desk, Happy Fox etc. One can use the Facebook page to spread the problems associated with that particular product and other product issues. Social space provides a platform to make people aware of the product defects. It will demonstrate the business house's willingness to take responsibility for mistakes making fans aware of the present business scenario and maintaining transparency. Some brands often offer their fans monthly exclusive deals and some host frequent giveaways. To know about this aspect follow Jim Belosic (CEO of ShortStack)'s link: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-customer-service-facebook/ .

In today's era of competitive world, it is less expensive to provide "great" service over "good service". The customer service company relies upon listening, analyzing and acting on it. Many organizations underestimate the impact and damage of various customer issues. This usually occurs because they are using data only from a single customer channel or taking into account their vocal customers only, limiting data to a single customer channel. If your organization works in silos, you may not have the complete picture especially if customers complain across multiple channels. This means if a company only counts the cases that complain on a specific channel, your view is limited to a small subset. Even if your organization counts all the complaints across all channels on a specific issue, it is likely that you'll still see a small percentage of the cases where customers are encountering these issues, because   majority of customers affected don't complain to the organization directly. In order to estimate more accurately and prioritize the impact of each customer concern organizations follows the following process. To know more:

http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/news-analysis/271903/steps-measure-impact-silent-customers/

An article by Sue Cockburn, Founder of Growing Social Biz, conveys that it's not that the customer is always right. They're not. But, they need to see us owning the problem when they believe they are right. Arguing to prove we are right and they are wrong may allow us to win the battle, but we'll likely lose the client. Clients deserve the benefit of the doubt. Maybe sometimes we'll be taken advantage of and sometimes we won't be able to fix mistakes or won't be able to take responsibility for something that is very clearly customer error and possibly not fixable. Keeping the customers we have and building on that base is much more cost effective than gaining new customers while existing ones stream out the back door!

To know more visit http://socialmediatoday.com/suecockburn/2428621/great-customer-service-not-about-being-perfect

An article by Matthew Peneycad, advertising agency expert in social media, conveys that on social media, advocates can greatly enrich the experience of your community, contribute to the promotion and dissemination of your content, alleviate demands on your customer service team, expose key insights that can be applied to your business planning and strategy, and provide broader exposure for your organization across the social web. They can provide meaningful input, ask interesting questions and provide responses to audience members. Through their personal social listening and activity in various social networks and communities, they can expose insights that otherwise would be of great challenge to identify and substantiate.

To know more visit http://socialmediatoday.com/rgbsocial/2422351/nurturing-social-media-advocacy-inside-out