Our Online Dialogue partner and social media expert Maurice Beerthuyzen wrote an article for Marketingfacts about webcare.

This week Johan Schaap tried to convince us that webcare does not belong in customer service. The current way customer service is usually managed could frustrate the benefits of current webcare activities. I completely agree with Johan, and yet I am a firm believer that webcare belongs in customer service. Today I explain to you under what conditions it will be a success.

Loose-limbed debauchers with no sense of standards?

Average customer service has a high turnover rate. Many young people find it an attractive side job and would rather do it than pick strawberries. Companies love these cheap relative workers. So in customer service, you will indeed see many students and temps.

The question is whether that is a bad thing. Are students indeed these disconnected loosies with no sense of standards? I have walked around many customer service offices. I indeed saw many young employees, with a lot of commitment and loyalty as well. However, these were departments that were well managed with a clear vision and clear objectives. With often team leaders who were short on time and through listening back, giving feedback and training made the employees better and better.

Mandate

By the way, I don't deny that things go wrong in customer services in the Netherlands. Often a lack of trust in the employees underlies this. I know the story of a telecom provider that got into trouble on Twitter because a BN'er asked if he could not be called by ‘that pirate gang. He was pretty fed up with that up and down twitter. Little did the BN'er know that the poor webcar employee couldn't, because all the phone numbers of BN'ers are listed as ’XXXXXXXXXXXXXX“ in the system, fearful that the temps might run off with the 06 numbers of the Barbies of this world.

But doesn't that say much more about the management style, the mutual trust and the way employees are managed? Johan of course hits the nail on the head in his blog: lack of mandate makes many customer service departments pretty much redundant. The case above is also a textbook example of lack of mandate. However, that was an example of a webcare department, so things can go wrong there too.

Step by step

I myself have been busy implementing webcare at Liander for some time now. My motto has always been: questions via social media belong with the departments that usually answer them via other channels. I certainly agree that you can't just throw webcare over the fence. But how do you implement webcare in the customer service department?

They are not stupid

First of all, we must get rid of the idea that customer service workers are stupid or unmotivated and that they have no or difficulty learning new developments. I was once greeted at a full customer service meeting with “Welcome to the company's garbage pit.” When you welcome every outside guest like that, the employees naturally start to feel like a waste pit. I always emphasize that customer service is the heart of the organization. They are the first to realize what is going on and what needs to be improved. As an organization, you are stupid if you don't make good use of that and if you don't motivate your employees that way.

We'll learn, eventually

Remember 15 years ago? Back then, email implementation was a big deal. Customers just started emailing, how dare they? Surely they could just call? I still remember that the then management of Interpolis had to be convinced that e-mail really was the new communication channel after all. The management wondered how to deal with that, until a survey by the AD showed that Interpolis was in the rear in their then National E-mail Test. Then moves were made quickly.

Meanwhile, in many cases, e-mail handling lies with customer service. Often ‘second-line employees’ are used for this, but these seniors are working in customer service. They master the written word and are knowledgeable. Couldn't they also care about webcare?

By the way, management or directors now often respond the same way: Customers just go on Twitter? Can't they email or call? The channel is different, the problem of all times.

Customer service commands

At Liander, we have connected the complaint handling employees to webcare. The complaints team is a fully-fledged part of the customer serivce. They are physically in the same place and when the need arises, they also help answer ‘normal’ phone calls. I always jokingly call the complaint teams “the customer service commandos.” Real GI Joes that you can even send solo on a mission. Because before you send your ‘army’ out on a problem, you've obviously had exploratory missions first.

Basic attitude: the channel is new, your promises the same

Liander's customer service is currently open from 9 am to 5 pm. The same goes for webcare. Do we make a promise in the webcare channel or give away a gift certificate? That's fine and nice, but then at a minimum we do the same in the other channels. Webcare is 100% connected to the existing channels in terms of policy. Whether you email, call or tweet. The intention is to help you in the same way.

Training

Of course, the impact of a public tweet in response to a complaint is different from a 1-on-1 phone call. That is why the complaint departments have now been intensively guided for a year. Daily feedback on tweets, a Liander webcast day where knowledge was shared between the departments, and recently a dashboard that directs employees on how quickly tweets are picked up and then how quickly the problem is resolved. Finally, people have been trained on persuasion-techniques, which now allows one to increasingly ask the right questions and better understand the client's psyche.

With patience and, above all, enthusiasm, there is now a team of 12 employees working on webcare, in the customer serivce department, to the satisfaction of both the organization and - more importantly - the customer.

Spread the word

Statistics, cool cases, sentiment development, benchmarks, internal roadshows and webcare days, everything was pulled out to bring webcare to the attention of the entire organization. With success. More and more people are asking questions, wanting to start monitoring for their department.

Our message is also consistent: we as webcarers are personal, human and open-minded. And combined with a positive basic attitude, even management is now becoming interested and asking the right questions, such as “Can we implement the webcar mentality for phone and e-mail handling as well?” (So we will start working on that soon).

Further development

We are now slowly but surely hooking up more and more customer service employees. Not in bunches, but people who show interest and have the skills are slowly being trained. In addition, we have now reached the stage where, in addition to apologizing (do apologize, keep apologizing, saying sorry is the least you can do towards your customers), we are making adjustments to the processes. In this way we have already been able to minimize ‘failed’ letters and speeding mechanics. Two small successes. We are already on the hunt for more.

At Liander, not all customer service is connected yet. That's true. But I hope that with my concrete example I have convinced people that ‘webcare where it belongs’ can indeed be organized. Do it with policy and with passion. In small steps with the big goal in mind. Then you will be surprised at the positive effects. Webcare will then grow, not as a separate phenomenon, but as a new third branch of customer service alongside telephony and e-mail.

Originally posted on September 26, 2013 at Marketingfacts