“Customer experience is one of the primary drivers of digital transformation.” As Forrester Research analyst Sheryl Pattek told CIO.com for the February digital magazine, “Customer experience is becoming a hot button — not just for the CMO, but across the C-suite. Customers expect a consistent experience, and they expect a company to know who they are from device to device and from touch point to touch point. You can only do that with technology.” 1
Social media and mobility are foundational elements of digital transformation, in fact, both are often catalysts for digital transformation. No longer do consumers and businesses need be confined to brick-and-mortar, bi-directional interactions. Social media means that businesses have an easily accessible, always-available presence with the consumer; mobility means that the consumer can interact with businesses from wherever and whenever they want.
Digital transformation, leveraging the use of social media and mobility, is the key to differentiation of the customer experience. But there are changes happening with social media and mobility that are so subtle that you may not even realize that it is happening. The technologies supporting social media and mobility are evolving right before us. In the latter part of 2015, both Twitter and Facebook 2 significantly upped their customer service functionality. Twitter ditched the “mutual follow” requirement for its Direct Message (DM) feature, meaning companies and customers can now contact each other directly and privately. At the same time, it lifted the standard 140-character limit for Direct Messages 3 , so DM now makes a great one-on-one channel for tackling customer issues. Facebook has launched a beta version of Messenger Business 4, offering a new chat-based avenue for companies to have real-time, personal conversations with customers.
But these are not the only technology changes that will impact social media and mobility.
Changes in Technology
Microapplications – During the 2016 Google I/O conference, Google announced “Instant Apps”, a new software app that arrives on the smart device almost instantly without a lengthy download. These Instant Apps are actually small parts of a larger app that handle very small and particular tasks. 5
- Beacons grow up – Beacons are small transmitters that broadcast information about a location to nearby mobile devices. While the technology has been around since 2013, the adoption and use of beacons has been slowed due to the fact that they’re not very secure. In April 2016, Google announced an “Ephemeral ID”, or EID, which lets developers control who can and cannot access a beacon signal. With this enhanced security, the use of beacons will enable uses such as personalized tracking of luggage, without the loss of identity and privacy to other devices that do not have the shared key to the EID. 6
- The emergence of the “everything platform” — Perhaps the biggest change in social media is the accelerated evolution of networks into “everything platforms.” Twitter isn’t just for blasting out 140-character updates anymore: It’s for one-on-one messaging, video-sharing, customer service and more. Facebook isn’t just about connecting with friends: it’s becoming a workplace productivity tool, a video sharing and streaming platform, a place to shop, and other uses. Similar transformations can be seen across LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat, among other networks. Social media has become less a discrete thing that people do than a natural component of everything they do. 7
What is the Impact?
A direct impact of the changes to social and mobile technologies is the convergence (or at least the forced partnership) of the CIO and CMO roles. CMOs must quickly adopt new and changing technologies to reach the consumer, and the CIO cannot afford to wait for and react to marketing-based technology and application requirements. Businesses are demanding more revenue from digital business, meaning that technology and marketing must work seamlessly to meet this demand. If the two roles are not combined, at the very least, the CIO and CMO roles must work more closely together.
Secondly, everyone in the organization must become social media savvy. The problem is that front-line employees aren’t up to the challenge. Among 2,100 companies surveyed by Harvard Business Review 8, just 12 percent of those using social media feel they use it effectively. The consequences of the social media skills gap range from corporate social media gaffes (misused hashtags, scheduled posts gone awry 9 to trillions of dollars in lost productivity and business value10.
Get Ready
Here are some suggestions for getting your business ready to leverage social media and mobility as part of your digital transformation.
Change your business’ social presence to be mobile-friendly. Many e-commerce sites require the consumer to click out to another site, which can be challenging for mobile device users. Businesses must up their social media and mobility games to manage the complete lifecycle of the customer experience in as few clicks as possible.
-
Provide employees with social media training. While many businesses use social media, few use it optimally. Businesses must treat social media training the same as other critical business tools and provide training to employees.
- Expand customer service channels to include social media. While email and telephone channels will continue to be relevant and expected customer service channels, businesses must expand those channels to include social platforms. A recent Forbes article stated that only 20 percent of retailers answer questions sent via Twitter and 54 percent respond via Facebook. Furthermore, the average response time ranged from 27 – 31 hours.11 This lack of responsiveness is counter-intuitive to the promise of social media and mobility. The digitally-transformed companies that get it right will separate themselves from the also-rans.
Sources:
1 CIO Staff. “Read CIO’s February 2016 Digital Magazine: Tech’s New Odd Couple.” CIO. IDG, 19 Feb. 2016. Web. 21 June 2016. http://www.cio.com/article/3034473/leadership-management/read-cios-february-2016-digital-magazine-techs-new-odd-couple.html
2 Holmes, Ryan. “Customer Service as a Spectator Sport Is About to End.” Time. Time, 10 June 2015. Web. 21 June 2016. http://time.com/3916355/social-media-customer-service/
3 Kastrenakes, Jacob. “Twitter Removing 140-character Limit from Direct Messages.” The Verge. Vox Media, 11 June 2015. Web. 21 June 2016. http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/11/8767821/twitter-lifts-dm-character-limit
4 Messenger developer website. Facebook 2015 https://www.messenger.com/business?_rdr
5 Metz, Cade. “With Instant Apps, Google Aims to Make the Web and Apps One.” Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 20 May 2016. Web. 21 June 2016. http://www.wired.com/2016/05/instant-apps-google-aims-make-web-apps-one/
6 Barrett, Brian. “Google May Have Found a Way to Make the Real-World Web Work.” Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 14 Apr. 2016. Web. 21 June 2016. http://www.wired.com/2016/04/google-beacon-security-eddystone/
7 Holmes, Ryan. “5 Big Changes Coming to Social Media in 2016.” Observer. Observer Media, 20 Jan. 2016. Web. 21 June 2016. http://observer.com/2016/01/5-big-changes-coming-to-social-media-in-2016
8 Holmes, Ryan. “Inside The Growing Social Media Skills Gap.” Fast Company. N.p., 21 Jan. 2016. Web. 21 June 2016. http://www.hbr.org/web/slideshows/social-media-what-most-companies-dont-know/2-slide
10 Hardy, Quentin. “McKinsey Says Social Media Could Add $1.3 Trillion to the Economy.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 25 July 2012. Web. 21 July 2016. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/mckinsey-says-social-media-adds-1-3-trillion-to-the-economy
11 Ryan, Tom. “Retailers Failing When Using Social Media To Answer Complaints.” Forbes.com. Forbes, 16 Nov. 2016. Web. 21 July 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/retailwire/2015/11/16/retailers-failing-when-using-social-media-to-answer-complaints
About the Author:
Trackbacks/Pingbacks