Since businesses became aware of social media, it’s been a bit of a puzzle who “owns” it. Obviously the customers, but who’s ultimately responsible for a company’s social media strategy?

Marketers have tended to either assume that social media is their department, or something to outsource to an agency. But the answer may be right under their nose: the call centre.

This isn’t a new message. Since 2007 we’ve been sharing how your brand is your customer experience, and social media just makes that truer than ever. That customer experience is most often delivered by people, and a lot of that takes place in call centres.

For it to work, however, at least two things need to happen: 1) Social media and call centre processes need to become friends, and 2) The right call centre operators need to be behind the keyboard.

Call Centre Processes

Over their short existence call centres have developed some pretty detailed standards for harnessing skills and making sure the right questions get answered by the right people in the right way.

Systems usually become software, and that’s definitely the case for call centres as well.

We recently discovered CONTACT Social, a social media management tool that starts with call centre processes, and integrates social media, along with SMS and email.

(Full disclosure: If our recommendation to you ends in a sale, we get a share of that sale. That’s not the reason we’re recommending it; rather, we see it fills a unique space in the market)

The Right People

Laurel Papworth said something awesome once (actually, she says a lot of great stuff!) about finding suitable people to manage social media: the customer service reps who have a bit too much personality for the call centre!

It makes perfect sense: social media is a place to listen and respond, as any good CSR would, but it also does require personality, and even a little bit of entertainment value. (Tummling, anyone?)

So here’s a wee checklist for the CSRs of the future – when social media will take its place in our contact centres alongside email, SMS and who knows what else yet to come:

• A sense of humour
• Humility
• Calm under pressure
• Skilled at solving problems and resolving complaints
• Highly articulate “words people”.
• Familiar with computers and the internet: don’t assume people (even young people) know how to do simple things like copy/pasting a link.
• Proactive – both for service and sales. Social media isn’t a purely customer service channel; it can also be a powerful promotional channel. You don’t want an order-taker who is just filling in time, you want someone who has a sense of ownership.

Contact Centre of the Future

Contact Centres can be seen as a profit centre, not just because they resolve customer problems, but because your customers bring those problems to you in the first place.

Where does innovation come from? Problems.

The contact centre of the future can become a learning, vibrant, creative hub of the business, with the right technology and the right people in place.

That is one call centre I’d love to connect with.

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(Marie‘s started her own Posterous blog at marieyoung.posterous.com. Here’s her second post:)

Have you ever been to a meeting and you talk about the people who aren’t in the room?

And there’ll be good reasons why these people you talk about aren’t in the room.  It’s not convenient, they’re located in another branch, they may not be in the Executive team or they may be the customer.

If you ever want to understand your customers more, stop and remember the frontline people.  These people are usually forgotten, their role is usually not deemed as an important one, they tend to be the last people who get briefed on any new activity or campaign.

The front line people are usually the receptionist or the customer service team. Imagine inviting some of your superstars to your next meeting.   They hold a container worth of insight, feedback and dare I say innovative ideas from working alongside the customer. They are they ones who help and listen to what your customers are saying day in and day out.

Sadly, the only time these frontline people are listened to is when they have an annual review or monthly if they’re fortunate.

If you don’t have a way of engaging and capturing these gems in your organisation, come up with a simple internal platform that encourages them to do so. Being listened to is a universal need. It’s what comes out of the listening that will surprise you!

How are you harnessing the talent within your organisation?

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