Generation Internet demands Contact Centre

The social media revolution leads to a new drive in customer communication

The ever increasing digitalisation of communication provides new challenges for service oriented organisations and brands. The drivers of this development are those born after 1980 – so called ‘Millenials’ or ‘Generation Internet’. They expect a fast response and complete answers to their individual enquiries by email and internet – ideally within hours.

‘Netizens’ (inhabitants of the web) also use social media platforms for information, and to discuss and give their opinion about products and services. For image conscious brands this represents a risk, as openly conducted opinion exchange can have very negative effects without quick and effective counter dialogue. Online evaluations and comments are rated highly by consumers. Contact centres are now faced with the challenge of following this communication, evaluating it in real-time and actively engaging in discussions to protect the company reputation and brand image.

ITyX, a specialist for contact centre software, based on Artificial Intelligence, will present a new solution at CallCenterWorld 2010 in Berlin next February. Their innovation is able to evaluate online communication using self-learning text analysis methods.

According to a 2008 study conducted by Nielsen, 78% of online visitors trust customer recommendations and opinions. Every hour around 60,000 such evaluations are entered in communities and forums. When searching the top 20 worldwide brand organisations, 25% of results lead to so called ‘user generated content’, ie content written by consumers. The increasing link up of social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, Twitter etc generate such a huge amount of information on the internet, that service organisations are almost powerless in the face of it.

The existing focus of the contact centre sector on classical communication channels; telephone, email, letter and fax, no longer reaches all of their customers. A digital service strategy, which integrates the social web and engages with the behaviour of its users, is now essential for the contact centre. Observing active participation in online discussions provides invaluable data for future targeted direct marketing activities. And of course the web community is an important indicator of attitudes towards brands and products.

It is critically important to recognise, evaluate and openly respond to these opinions in a timely way. The technological foundation for such a digital service strategy are self-learning software solutions, that not only classify emails using text analysis methods, but can also evaluate comments and opinions according to their relevance on social media platforms.

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