There is an increasing overlap between customer service and social media management

Classic customer service and the management of social media pages are getting closer every year. As more and more customers try to contact brands directly on social platforms, the media agencies that manage these platforms take on more and more customer service tasks. At the same time, call centers are increasingly being commissioned to fully manage social media interfaces in addition to providing customer service for the client company.

At least four-fifths of consumers, 95 percent of 18-34 year olds, use social media to connect with brands, and based on their positive experiences, 59 percent say these platforms have made it easier for them to communicate with customer service. Today, even in the small- to middle enterprise (SME) segment, more than 50 million companies worldwide keep in touch with their customers via Facebook. Companies choose call center companies to manage their social media sites for the following reasons:

Long, even non-stop opening hours

Call centers usually provide customer support 16 or even 24 hours a day, often 7 days a week. Because of this

1. they can respond to inquiries on time and often
2. they are more likely to deal with a potential crisis problem, post, comment or just a tag in time

Extensive expertise and product knowledge

The efficient management of customer service processes makes it essential to have a thorough knowledge of the products and the needs of the customers. Especially in cases where customer service problem-solving tasks are also connected to sales activities. Because of this

3. they are able to handle inquiries on social media with an extremely fast reaction time
4. customers encounter consistent responses of the same type on all channels

Cost effectiveness

Due to the increasing overlap of different types of customer service activities, the operation of the entire system through a single service provider

5. makes processes more efficient and optimizes costs
6. increases the number of problems solved during the first conversation (i.e. first call resolution). This is an important metric for call centers, as an improvement of even 1 percentage point in this area can result in several percent reductions in operating costs

Top technology

Call centers are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) in the performance of their basic tasks.

7. In addition to handling simpler questions, AI can also effectively handle simple tasks that arise in social media, such as placing likes, emojis, or short comments in the right place at the right time

„Of course, the many competencies of a contact center and a marketing agency differ significantly, so in practice each company entrusts one, the other or both with tasks related to customer service and social media management, according to their own criteria - explained Zsolt Máté Juhász, United Call Centers executive director. "However, where the focus is on customer service activities, modern outsourcing companies prove to be more competitive.”

United Call Centers

United Call Centers (UCC) is one of the market-leading providers of outsourced customer service solutions. The main profile of its activity is multilingual customer support by phone, email and chat, the automation of business processes, and the development of services based on artificial intelligence. Its sales revenue is HUF 4 billion, and the number of Hungarian and foreign employees is 700.

The Hungarian-owned UCC, founded in 1999, operates in more than 50 languages and in 40 countries. Its clients are companies that represent outstanding quality in their respective fields in the telecommunications, food industry, energy industry, health industry, e-commerce, and e-mobility. The basis of its success is the constant effort to provide its clients with an outstanding customer experience using the most advanced technologies available.