Big migration to social media for Aussie businesses

Gordon Peters
Thursday, 02 December 2010 23:53

IT Industry - Market

More than half of all Australian businesses will adopt social media as a customer service channel for the first time in 2011, with 71 per cent investigating the use of Facebook, and 53 per cent reviewing Twitter as potential vehicles for propelling positive customer experiences.

{loadpositrion peter}According to a survey conducted among IT and customer service professionals at the RightNow Technologies Asia Pacific Summit staged earlier this month in Melbourne, 54 percent of Aussie businesses have indicated they will adopt social media as a customer service channel, while a further 42 per cent also said they plan to launch a company branded customer community as a new way of driving customer engagement.

RightNow says the survey found that 82 per cent of organisations currently provide customers with phone support, 88 per cent provide email support and 77 per cent provide web support, with 35 percent of organisations also providing web chat facilities.  

According to Brett Waters, vice president Asia Pacific- South for RightNow, the move to adopt social media in 2011 coincides with a transition to mobile self-service as smart phones become increasingly pervasive (according to Frost & Sullivan, 62 percent of all devices sold will be smartphones by 2015, up from two percent in 2009).

'Sixty per cent of organisations plan to increase their mobile self-service investment in the year ahead.  While three-quarters of all business (77 per cent) are reviewing the addition of mobile-self-service to their existing customer service organisation and support channels in the year ahead,' Waters said. He also makes the point that driving the extension of self-service capabilities to handheld devices 'is the need to improve an individual customer's experience,' with 66 per cent stating this to be the case.

Waters warns that the survey's results are a real wake-up call for organisations of all sizes that don't respond to new possibilities for enhancing their brand image and striving for market leadership.

'Providing a mobile experience, having a compelling Facebook presence, responding to your customer's tweets, creating online communities and remaining at the forefront of customer service innovation will be the hallmarks for the organisations that succeed in satisfying the needs of individual customers in 2011 and beyond,' Waters said.