Recruitment Sales

How to recruit & manage social customer service teams

A team of customer service representatives working together answering customer calls via telephone

This topic can draw fierce debate and sometimes becomes a proxy fight between “old” and “new” ways. Some argue it is just a matter of finding people who are strong text based communicators. While others argue the whole nine yards around needing a “bean bag” culture and people that “get” social. It is, therefore, important to have developed your own carefully considered point of view based on understanding these different perspectives and underlying issues.

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Consequences

Assuming you chose to see some degree of difference between the cultures of mainstream customer service and social Customer Service, it follows that the recruit-train-manage cycle is correspondingly different. Therefore success comes from recognising and delivering against those differences. Equally, failure results from doing the same things as before while still expecting a fresh outcome.

However, it could be that you do not want to change any of the fundamentals. For instance, employee and customer feedback suggest your existing approach already works, and there is no case for change. If this scenario fits then just “continue as normal”.

Issues

Quick win version

Mandate a cross-functional task force that ideally blends Customer Service and social media operational expertise to produce a “starter pack” version for use in the first six months of setting up a new team.

Follow-up actions

Tips

Related topics

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