Social Media Customer Service / Contact Center Product and Best Practices Market Report 2012 – 2013

DMG has been working to produce a social media customer service/contact center industry report for the past three years. During this time, we have done extensive research to identify applications and best practices that were useful for contact centers or customer service organizations. Over the years, we have invested over 1,000 hours in this research, searching for solutions that can help organizations address their “social media” customer service challenge. Unfortunately, while many vendors from a wide variety of functional areas claim to offer solutions to help customer service groups, consumer affairs organizations and contact centers handle social media interactions, there is much more “talk” (and marketing) than actual product.

Any organization that wants to implement a full contact center social media program needs to bolt together a number of solutions and create their own “best practices.” The landscape is starting to change, and there are finally some solutions that are compelling, even though they address only a small portion of the functionality that contact centers and customer service groups need to respond to social media interactions with the proper level of oversight. This Report shares many of the known servicing best practices and rules of engagement for handling social media customer service inquiries. However, DMG appreciates that these practices are likely to improve as they are tested and enhanced by practitioners.