The impact of social media on the call center industry will be a continuing theme here leading up to the ATA Conference & Expo where CallMe! CEO Chris Bracken will be speaking on this topic.  CallMe! heavily utilizes social media in its recruiting efforts for staffing call center jobs, so we thought it might be interesting to relay some advice from an operational perspective.

A recent post from the International Customer Center Institute entitled “Embracing Social Media in the Call Center: Best Practices“, gives some good baseline advice detailing how social media should and will impact call center executives, managers & supervisors:

Executives: Social media is proving to be a game changer in business and customer support. Enterprises that ignore this new channel and the impact it has on customer advocacy do so at their own peril. Senior managers need to provide the call center with the support and resources it needs to continuously keep its finger on the pulse of customer sentiment within social networks, and to effectively engage customers and solve issues via the new media.

Directors/Managers: Leaders in the call center are charged with defining the specific role the center plays in managing this critical new channel and developing new strategies and initiatives to ready itself for the emerging social media challenge. Such processes and programs as agent hiring, training, workforce management and quality assurance must be carefully analyzed – and altered, where necessary – to ensure success in the social media environment. And certainly new tools and platforms will need to be evaluated and implemented.

Supervisors: The often unsung heroes in the call center, supervisors play an instrumental role in converting all the social media talk and strategy into action. This includes getting agents ready for the new role; helping agents to continually improve via coaching; and keeping staff engaged and motivated during this challenging transitional period. In addition, supervisors will be called upon to assist with such higher level processes as technology selection and customer satisfaction measurement and management as it relates to social media interactions.

Related articles by that may be of interest:

• Which Department Owns Social Media? (mashable.com)
• B2B social media spend to increase to $4.8 billion by 2014 (freshnetworks.com)
• What Should Salespeople Be Doing With Social Media (thecustomercollective.com)
• 5 Social Media Risks for Companies and Employees… And How To Prevent Them (socialtimes.com)
• How Do You Define Social Media Success? (socialmediatoday.com)