subject: Next in BPO: CRM on Social Media! [print this page] Next in BPO: CRM on Social Media! Next in BPO: CRM on Social Media!
The BPO industry has always been credited without trying out something new. Time and again it has moved out of its comfort zone, taking the business communities by surprise. The call center agents have upgraded their skill-sets with the clockwork precision and inevitability of a surgeon. They have fleshed out of the telemarketing mould to try out something new and something different from what they have been trained to do. When social media marketing burst onto the scene, dedicated business process outsourcing planners decided to give this new form of customer interaction a shot. Customer relationship management (CRM) on social media came into vogue.
Interacting with customers on social media has different metrics. Here you are most likely to have BPO agents talk to customers as fans or followers of the company profile. Sometimes the sales head of the call center may have a personal profile page for customer interaction. More often than not, the outbound call center agents create profiles which have a fake information base registered. These are generally profiles created by business process outsourcing firms with outsourced projects. Because they are generally manned by natives of the developing countries, they take on personas of the same country as the client base. It is the same principle that is used in voice calls.
The aim of the customer relationship management effort on social media is to create a brand. Brands are the new-age way to do business. Customers recall brands when they want to make a purchase. BPO agents try and build a brand that can register themselves as credible in the eyes of the potential customers. The call center agents help existing customers with after-sales support. Quality service does not only get you the brownie points. It also makes sure that your customers spread the good word. Recommendations and sharing of links is very dominant in the social media network. The aim of the outbound call center team would always be to make sure that the goodwill of the company and the products/services get a positive word-of-mouth publicity.
To conduct CRM on social media, BPO agents promote their products/services through web pages other than the profile pages. The outbound call center agents create event pages which are like virtual events. The call center agents launch their products on the web sometimes, exclusively for the online customers and followers. They also make a sort of virtual RSVP for the event! The business process outsourcing center that is much keen on promoting themselves aggressively on the social media would think of innovative and unique ways of making things happen on this circuit.
Customer relationship management is really needed for branding on social media. Customers and their friends are there to be found on networks like Facebook and Twitter. The BPO agent has to tap them and make a mark. The fact gets an added push when you have a satisfied customer putting in a nice word for you. A well-defined CRM action plan can work wonders for you!
