As a small and medium-sized business, are you wondering if social media customer service is really important or is it just a fad? Well, consider these facts
- Solving an issue on social media is 83% cheaper than resolving it through a call center interaction (Hubspot)
- 54% of customers prefer social media for customer service over phone or email
- Answering a social media complaint can increase customer advocacy by as much as 25%
Once you are convinced that you need to have a robust social media customer service strategy in place, do keep the following in mind –
- Over 80% of people expect companies to respond to their social media complaint within a day
- 60% of customers who complain through social media, expect a response within an hour
In today’s hyper-connected, digital world, leveraging the power of social media to resolve customer issues is essential for businesses to maintain a competitive advantage.
However, most of the social media customer service solutions are not affordable or too complex for small businesses that are working with tight budgets. That apart, businesses that have already invested in solutions like ServiceNow Customer Service Management are not inclined to spend an exorbitant amount for adding the social media service component.
For such businesses, Xceltrait has launched the latest version of XcelSocial – a ServiceNow certified integration app built on the Now platform.
We got in touch with Vikas Magoo, President of Xceltrait Inc., to know more about this app. Here are the excerpts of the conversation –
Question: Tell us a little more about XcelSocial
Vikas: XcelSocial makes social media customer service easy!
XcelSocial seamlessly integrates with social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter and allows key customer comments to be pulled directly into ServiceNow. These comments can then be managed through ServiceNow by the customer service teams. With XcelSocial, companies can identify customer details and issues within their ServiceNow instance. It helps them proactively connect with potentially dissatisfied customers on social media and quickly resolve their issues. Of course, these things help in improving their NPS and customer satisfaction scores.
Question: How (and why) did you think about building this app?
Vikas: Whether businesses like it or not, today’s mobile-first customers are likely to go on social media and express dissatisfaction if they feel they have received sub-par products or services. In fact, most customers prefer to complain on social media instead of conventional support channels like email or phone. And of course, customers are also happy to engage with brands that engage and respond to their complaints on social media. In fact, if they have a positive experience, they are likely to recommend the business to others.
So, irrespective of the size of the businesses, social media customer service is essential.
With ServiceNow’s initiative to focus heavily in the Customer Service Management space, we felt that there was an inherent need to integrate ServiceNow CSM with social media channels, and we came up with the idea for XcelSocial to address that need.
Question: How is it different from other social media listening tools?
Vikas: Primarily, two things differentiate XcelSocial from other social media customer service solutions –
One, XcelSocial is natively built for ServiceNow – so the overall experience for ServiceNow users is extremely seamless.
Secondly, XcelSocial not only brings the social comments and issues into ServiceNow, but it also helps with the issue resolution and case management process from within ServiceNow. Customer service agents using ServiceNow CSM don’t need to worry about switching between different tools leading to higher productivity and faster issue resolution.
Question: What type of companies can benefit from using XcelSocial?
Vikas: Any organization that needs the ability to provide customer service through social media will benefit from XcelSocial. Having said that, considering its ease of use and pricing, we believe that it is especially useful for small and medium-sized businesses that have invested in ServiceNow and want to get started quickly with a short learning curve.
Question: How easy (or difficult) is it to use XcelSocial?
Vikas: Companies can get started with XcelSocial within a matter of a few days.
XcelSocial needs minimal configuration to get it up and running. Users don’t need any specific training to use it as it is extremely easy to use. For companies that want to leverage XcelSocial’s advanced capabilities, we provide additional consulting services.
Question: How can one get started with XcelSocial?
Vikas: The free trial version of XcelSocial is available on the ServiceNow app store. However, businesses need to have a ServiceNow CSM license to download and review the trial version of XcelSocial.
To learn more about XcelSocial, visit https://xceltrait.com/xcelsocial-2
