Left: Dell’s Social Media Command and Listening Center, Austin Texas. The purpose of this post is to be an industry reference for this social business use case, please leave comments with further additions. Many a year ago, I worked at a web hosting company that had a Network Operations Center (NOC) that looked like NASA’s mission control. Enclosed in a glass ‘fishbowl’ the 20-50 staff, systems, training, technology were all used in conjunction to support the network traffic of the customers websites, see Google images. The “NOC” was externally packaged and marketed as a cutting edge feature of a top performance center, touted on customer tours at HQ, and had internal mystique and prestige of those who were there. Today, we similar centers emerging at top brands, event managers, as well as offerings from a variety of marketing and customer service providers for social. With India’s recent crises on social channels causing a shut down in websites, expect government bodies and agencies around the world to open these for daily interaction with citizens, and as well as dealing with high urgency situations. Definition and Goals: A Dedicated Social Media Engagement Center or Command Center is a physical space where companies coordinate to listen and engage their market in social channels to achieve business use cases in marketing engagement, customer care, risk management, or operational efficiency of coordination and contact center deflection. Starting with Strategy First, understand that customer support and engagement has changed, we’ve found six changes to traditional customer care. Before we dive into tactics (There’s a matrix below to assist) let’s ensure we understand the greater context. Companies must first realize this is a single tactic in a greater strategy of social business. Often this program may stem from the Social Media Center of Excellence program, a cross-functional leadership team that oversees many programs. David Armano also provides strategic guidance that this is more than fancy screens in a fishbowl, but people, process, and analytics are required for success. Additionally, clear business goals need to be defined, with measurable KPIs laid out in front before initiating this program –shiny Twitter room won’t cut it. Risks and Criticisms Like all business programs, there are always tradeoffs, we’ve identified the following: Sexy deployment DuJour, could quickly go out of style. Many companies have touted their centers, but if core business problems aren’t being solved, it will be viewed as sizzle and no steak. This public commitment to listening in social is a promise to customers you’re going to be there. Set clear expectations on how goals and limitations, but know frustrated customers will expect you to respond It’s cheap, but is it really? Seemingly low cost, the long term resource needs must be offset by business benefits. These physical centers can be used to attract internal attention to the social media program, but will put additional scrutiny on business goals. Questions on integration with other customer channels will be asked. Encourages customers to “yell at their friends to get your attention”. Social is often a lower cost of communication than other channels, but encouraging customers to use social as first channel, basterdizes existing traditional channel investments, and may encourage customers to get best treatment from brand if they’re public. Companies deploy these one off tactics without a broader social business strategy across the enterprise. This is just one toolset, and if all the processes aren’t fully deployed internally and the impact to customer experience, this could be ‘cart before horse’. Breakdown: Dedicated Centers Have Many Variables Variation Ranges What No One Tells You Use Case Use cases can vary from marketing engagement, customer service, lead generation, internal coordination, compliance, risk mitigation, or product innovation. Be clear internally and externally on the goals of the program.Some social media vendors launch these centers to showcase their products. Duration Companies vary their scope, some are only open periodically for critical events, while others are open 24/7/365 Be clear to the market on when response is available. Companies that desire full coverage but don’t need FTEs should outsource to qualified agency partners, or specialists like LiveWorld, emoderation, Cap Gemini and others Sourcing Internal teams vs external teams. Internal teams range from marketing communicators, product managers, and contact center agents. Caution on charging junior staff with representing the brand online who don’t have full business acumen or PR agencies that don’t understand deep engagement nuances. Trained script based contact agents may have deep product knowledge, may struggle at the real time, personal interactions required on social channels. Agent Scope We’re seeing agents at command centers that are focused on dedicated social channels only, that then hand off to other teams. Also, universal agents that understand nuances of all channels are also emerging. This also spans product coverage as well as regions and languages. A multi-tier approach may be useful by pinning dedicated social agents first as first line interaction, then shifting to advanced agents in a triage process, one size does not fit all. Locations Some companies are putting at HQ only, while at Dell, I was informed they have centers around the globe that ‘follow the sun’ for exposure Outsourcing these centers to third party agencies, service providers is increasing at a rapid pace, seek to outsource lower level functions but keep core brand engagement and storytelling near corporate.
