{"id":49389,"date":"2014-11-17T17:27:04","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T01:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"\/us\/en\/blog\/making-case-for-social-customer-care-telco\/"},"modified":"2025-03-13T06:09:40","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T13:09:40","slug":"making-case-for-social-customer-care-telco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/us\/en\/blog\/making-case-for-social-customer-care-telco\/","title":{"rendered":"Making the case for social customer care in telco"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Social Media is Eating the Internet, Mobile is Eating Social Media<\/h2>\n

In 2010, Social media became the number 1 online activity. The average American spends upwards of 3 hours per day on social networking (1).<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s another trend on course to eclipse it \u2014 namely that mobile is eating social media: 60% of social media time is spent on a mobile device (smartphone or tablet) (2).<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, telcos, along with many other sectors, have been seizing the opportunity to invest this new catchment zone.<\/p>\n

However, if telcos are so keen to succeed in social media engagement, it is also because in this mobile, always-connected lifestyle, no forward-thinking operator wants to be relegated to the role of \u201cdumb pipe\u201d (3).<\/p>\n

In other words, customer demand is one reason to rethink customer service provision and social media engagement; The existential threat of commoditization and losing share of wallet to other players in the value chain is another.<\/p>\n

Being there versus being useful<\/h2>\n

For many aspects of social media, brands are pursuing gradual approaches and maturity levels certainly vary. However, for social customer service, the difference between just being there and actually being useful is more of a binary one for customers:<\/p>\n

Either it\u2019s relevant and works or it isn\u2019t and doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean that social customer service is an all-or-nothing proposition. On the contrary, a gradual roadmap is possible.<\/p>\n

When designing your social customer service roadmap, think about how you want to prioritize the following 3 driving factors. This will help you plan a staged approach.<\/p>\n

The 3 Telco Social Customer Service Drivers<\/h2>\n

At the end of the day, social customer service in the telco sector is being driven by 3 interconnected factors, namely cost, complexity, and relevance.<\/p>\n

The cost containment imperative<\/h2>\n

Internal efficiency has always been a dominant theme in customer service. However, increased competition is pushing operators to look beyond optimization to rethink the whole equation.<\/p>\n

There are 3 main items in cost-to-serve:<\/p>\n