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unprecedented scale. Social media is not only changing how consumers participate in the conversation, but also how businesses must respond. And whilst some are quite forward-thinking and innovative with regards to their social media policy and participation – both in terms of employee usage and the company’s own social media focused business strategy – there are others who struggle to formulate a plan and are blindly participating with no formal processes, controls or engagement strategy. Yankee Group’s report highlights the fact that consumers are moving from passive consumption to active participation and therefore expect businesses to be engaged. The survey that was conducted as part of Yankee Group’s research revealed that 81 percent of respondents said it is important for companies to review social media sites to see what people are saying about them. Also, considering that 40 percent of respondents participate in blogs and/or social networking for both work and personal use, companies must take social media seriously. And some are taking it seriously. Some are starting to use it as a form of enhanced customer support in near real-time, and others are looking at the marketing side of things in order to reach customers, stimulate debate and build relationships. So this brings us back to the question of why social media has slightly eclipsed UC in the business arena. The majority of UC applications deployed today revolve around improving communications and collaboration with individuals from the same organisation, whilst consumer-focused social media is what workers turn to in order to communicate and collaborate with those outside of the organisation.
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Integrating unified communications and social media can: • Create a 360-degree view of the customer that includes information never previously available. • Deepen customer relationships by communicating with a customer in the method he or she prefers. • Increase first contact resolution by putting customers in contact with the right individuals immediately. • Enable better corporate collaboration by providing a broad set of tools to reach both internal co-workers and a user-defined external network of individuals. • Streamline business processes by automating many of the day-to-day tasks that normally involve human interaction. • Provide better access to expertise, both within and outside of an organisation, by enabling faster access via a company’s knowledge base. Source: Yankee Group, 2010
“UC has a tremendous amount of potential to change the way we work and collaborate. To unlock the full potential, however, UC solutions need to be integrated with social media,” according to the report. By doing this, businesses will be able to cut costs, improve collaboration and increase productivity.
23/09/2010 13:21