Parature for Facebook

Newly Available Parature for Facebook Helps Companies Increase “Face-Time” while Keeping Support and New Customer Acquisition Costs Low

Today we announced the general availability of Parature for Facebook, the industry’s first and only customer service application that enables direct customer engagement through Facebook. The Parature for Facebook application, delivered on-demand through Parature’s software-as-a-service model, helps companies, educational institutions and government associations directly engage with their Facebook fans to resolve service issues, answer pre-sales questions and conduct one-to-one customer interactions, all within Facebook and accessible through an easily installed Support Tab on a Facebook page.

Several new and existing Parature customers have signed on as users of Parature for Facebook, but language learning software giant Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE: RST) made history today when it became the very first company in the world to unveil support and service through Facebook to its more than 6,000 fans.

“We are excited to be the first company, ever, to provide live support through Facebook. Our Facebook presence is key to our customer acquisition and retention strategies, and we knew we needed a way to foster stronger relationships and resolve any questions or issues encountered by our growing Facebook fan base,” said Jay Topper, senior vice-president of customer success, Rosetta Stone. “Parature for Facebook empowers us to do just that, while fully integrating Facebook as an additional channel into our customer success operations.”

Parature for Facebook is designed to meet the market’s increasing demand to provide rich and meaningful communication, service and support through the world’s most popular social media platform, Facebook. Recently surpassing Google as the most visited website according to Hitwise and announcing it reached its 500 million member milestone, Facebook is a cultural force that is changing how and with whom people communicate. Companies desiring stronger and more profitable customer relationships need to figure out how to use social media to build their brand and drive more business through the emerging channel.

“Social Media has taken over several business functions over the past few years, and most organizations are beginning to understand how Twitter and Communities work for Customer Service,” said Esteban Kolsky of ThinkJar, LLC. “The continued migration from several social networks, as well as the rise of Facebook as the destination for more and more customers has put organizations in a particular uncomfortable situation – most of them are not even sure whether Facebook can or should be treated as a channel for Customer Service, or what to do if they decide to move into it. As a result, most of the implementations we are seeing are escalation recommendations for clients. Research has shown that companies that engage customers in the channels of the customer choice are going to have higher customer satisfaction. It is time for companies to consider how to engage customers across all social channels seamlessly, as they have done for email, chat, and other customer service channels.”

Prior to Parature for Facebook, companies had to manually monitor and respond to individual posts. Now, organizations can take advantage of a fully integrated solution that automates and streamlines the service and support process within Facebook. By offering customers direct access to service teams through Wall posts, private chat sessions or tickets, the application enables one-to-one engagement in a very social forum.

Faster and Lower Cost Issue Resolution with Live Chat, Ticket Submission, Knowledgebase Access and More

Parature for Facebook includes several features all directly accessible through a Facebook page and designed to help customers gain access to sales, service representatives and tools that help rapidly resolve service issues and answer questions while keeping support and new customer acquisition costs low for companies. Parature for Facebook features are accessible through the application’s Facebook Support Tab, which is easily installed on any corporate Facebook page, and include:

Real-time Facebook Wall Monitoring for Quick Customer Response
Via the ‘Parature Page Monitor’ all relevant posts containing chosen keywords will be read from the wall and sent to the Parature Service Desk as a ticket, enabling service representatives to easily monitor and respond to otherwise unmanageable wall posts and comments without ever leaving their Parature software;

Knowledgebase Search Right from Facebook The ‘Find an Answer’ feature enables customers visiting a page to enter a search term and receive the relevant answer directly from the organization’s knowledgebase without ever leaving Facebook. Additionally, the customer can use the ‘Ask a Question’ feature for resolution if their question wasn’t answered via the aforementioned method;

Live Chat Direct from a Fan Page
A customer visiting a page can ‘Chat with an Agent’ to discuss a service problem, issue, or to ask a question directly from Facebook. The representative will respond to the Facebook user via Parature Chat™ for quick issue resolution and a rich one-to-one interaction;

Sharing a Customer Service Experience
Using the ‘Share’ feature, a customer who uses the support functionality within Facebook can share their answers and service experiences on their personal wall; attracting new customers and building positive brand perception for organizations

Parature for Facebook is available as a stand-alone application, or as a component of the complete Parature Customer Service™ software suite. All Parature software support solutions are delivered on-demand in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment.

“With today’s release of Parature for Facebook, Parature becomes the first software company, ever, to provide organizations the ability to extend their sales, support and marketing operations to Facebook and provide direct engagement,” said Duke Chung, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Parature. “We are extremely proud to be the first to market and to, once again, demonstrate our commitment to innovation by delivering a cutting-edge product that addresses evolving business issues for our customers.”

Webinar - Facebook for Business: How to Engage and Support Your Customers Directly on Your Facebook Page

In the beginning, Facebook was viewed as a personal-focused networking tool. Now users outnumber the entire population of the United States.

Clearly, Facebook can be a powerful tool for brands, businesses, and non-profits. This webinar will help you maximize your business to get the most out of being on Facebook.

You will also learn how you can add the Parature for Facebook customer support application directly to your Facebook Page to ensure your customers’ experience is optimized.

Taking part in this webinar provides the opportunity to hear about the latest stats and changes on Facebook, as well as discover some unexpected surprises that can happen on your page when you are able to support customers directly from your Facebook Page.

This webinar is essential for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of what Social CRM on Facebook really means and learn about the new Parature for Facebook product.

Attend this webinar to:

• Discover the benefits of social customer relationship management
• Get business results through connecting and engaging with fans on Facebook
• Learn how you can offer customer support directly from your business page
• See the benefits of monitoring, listening, and engaging with your customers on your Facebook Page

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version will be available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

How 2 Give GR8 #CustomerService & Have Your Followers 'Like' You in All Social Channels

The webinar “How 2 Give GR8 #CustomerService & Have Your Followers ‘Like’ You in All Social Channels” was attended by hundreds of customer service and support professionals who submitted numerous questions during the webinar. Due to the time constraints of the event, Rich was unable to answer all of the great questions submitted; however he has been gracious enough with his time to answer each one within our blog.

Whether you attended the webinar or not, you may find that the answers to these questions may also help you understand how to leverage social media for better service.

If you did not attend the webinar, we invite you to watch it now. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

Sure, silence CAN imply that we’re “not clued in” and “not connected”….but what about when the mention is a rant? Or has definite potential to negatively spiral out of control?  How do we determine what’s safe and what’s too risky to respond to?

Excellent question. Remember that silence is a response too, so thoughtfully decide if your interests are best served by that response. In general, I prefer a strategy of providing at least *one* reasonable answer – especially when you and the “rant”-er are both branding yourselves in front of a public audience.

-Rich

It seems there is a focus on negative feedback, is the majority of information out there negative?

Check out Facebook fan pages or online support communities for some of your own favorite products. I think you will find that the community itself reflects what they think of a business – for example, when a *good* company is criticized; people will generally come to its defense, while an unpopular one may provoke a feeding frenzy of criticism.

For example, I am currently finishing a masters degree at an accredited (and fairly well respected) online program. When someone posted a “rant” complaining about its distance learning format in its community, nearly 25 people responded, all defending the school! If your customers generally like you, you will often see similar outcomes.

-Rich

What is the best way to send out a message on a fan page in Facebook?

Once you “like” a business fan page (using the “Like” button at the top of its page), you are generally able to post to its wall which can be a great soapbox for you to share your own opinions!

-Rich

If you are fairly certain an ex-employee is the one complaining, how do you handle that situation?

Exactly the same way as any person who complains. Take the high road and respond in a way that is factual rather than defensive. That said, you often do have the option of “blocking” people who violate the standards of your online community, particularly if they are repeat offenders.

-Rich

What do you think about the notion of relying on organized customer advocates to assist in customer service issues rather than relying exclusively on staff?

This is a fantastic idea *if* your company is big enough. You need a substantial economy of scale to have your own user community to respond to customers, unless you specifically groom (and reward) your own paraprofessionals. For the big players, like Apple and Microsoft, I personally often get much better answers from “the wisdom of crowds” than even the best support knowledgebase.

-Rich

Our company has a high concentration of consumers whom are 65+ and have been loyal customers to our company.  If a company focuses on social media in order to keep up with current trends does this not alienate those consumers who are not on Facebook, Twitter or who do not even have a computer at home?

When Carolyn Healey of SupportIndustry.com first proposed this webinar, she and I were discussing exactly the same issue – some companies (which shall remain nameless) seem to openly favor “trendy” social media support channels over their regular ones, leading unwittingly to a perception that they could give a “tweet” about their other customers.

In my view, social media should be just one channel in an integrated support environment – which in turn may mean re-thinking your entire support process around more interactivity and faster response.

-Rich

Does Facebook sell our contact information?

Not that I am aware of. According to their privacy policy, “we will not provide your information to (third-party) marketers without your consent.” However, they certainly do use your information to stream targeted ads to your FB page. Facebook’s privacy policy is actually pretty readable – check it out at: http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

-Rich

How do you balance privacy needs with quick and open communication (specifically dealing with personal or financial type business transaction)?

Privacy is very important in a social networking environment, particularly because being contacted through Facebook or Twitter does not provide implied consent to disclose personal information. Combine a public response with a link to contact you: for example, a tweet saying, “We can accommodate your request. Contact us at (link) and we’ll have the details ready for you.”

-Rich

How would you recommend responding to social media rants that contain mis/incorrect information?

By first acknowledging and validating the person’s concerns, then making a factual and non-defensive response. For example, “We completely respect your concerns about privacy. We share the same concerns as customers with families of our own. Regarding the issues you have raised, we want to reassure you that we do not, in fact, sell your contact information to third-world spies and computer hackers, as you state here.”

-Rich

Can you explain the benefits of having a Facebook Page for a company?

Facebook is now the third-largest “country” in the world, with over 500 million users, most of whom visit daily, and many of whom spend hours on it. Increasingly, most major businesses now have a FB presence because that is where their customers are. And many consumers – particularly younger ones – are starting to expect you to have a social media presence as a way to connect with you.

Try dipping your toe in the water by setting up a FB fan page for your company – which is very easy to do – and then perhaps try Parature’s free monitoring tool to see what kind of activity you get, once you promote it.

-Rich

How can or should companies budget for providing customer service using the social media discussed today?

I believe companies should budget for providing support, period, with social media being just one channel. Gary McNeil did a wonderful job of laying out the folly of trying to put social media support as a layer on top of your normal support process. And I will give a shameless plug for products like his Parature for FB – they get us closer to a world where social media seamlessly feeds in to an integrated support environment.

-Rich

Can this concept be applied to the company’s normal Web support web site?  Not just Facebook.

I’m going to ask my friends at Parature to answer this one.

-Rich

Everything that Rich has communicated can be applied to all of your support channels. You should be using multiple integrated support channels to service your customers, and you can use Rich’s tips – acknowledge and validate concerns or issues; engage your customers, listen to them and make things right – in any support channel whether it’s a live chat, a phone call, a trouble ticket, or a social interaction. Social media is just one support channel that you should be leveraging.

For more strategies and techniques on how to effectively communicate with your customers, we invite you to watch some of our previous webinars with Rich.

Getting Your Worst Customers to Love You: True Tales from the Front Lines of Customer Support

How to Tell Anyone Anything: Coaching Your Service Team to Success

What to Say to a Porcupine: Strategies for Dealing with Difficult Customers

-Parature

Re: Consumerist.com…replying from the company could end up fueling the fire if readers don’t like or respect the response.

It certainly could, depending on the response. But in my view, no response is often the worst response of all. This is why I spent so much of this webinar discussing how to communicate in a social media world. You have to drop the officious corporate prose and speak honestly and authentically to consumers, if you hope to make a good impression. If your company is not organizationally prepared to do this, I agree, it may be best not to respond.

-Rich

Rich’s Social Network:

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Blog: http://point-of-contact.blogspot.com

Website: www.pointofcontactgroup.com

E-mail: gallagher@pointofcontactgroup.com

Webinar: How 2 Give GR8 #CustomerService & Have Your Followers 'Like' You in All Social Channels

Customers are increasingly turning to social media to air their service issues – especially when they feel companies could give a tweet about them through other channels. In the process, your service reputation is now out in the open for everyone to see. But some companies are leading the charge to use services like Twitter, Facebook, and virtual communities to brand their 21st century service identity.

This webinar will show you how to leverage social media for better service if you’re new to it, and how to sharpen your virtual service image if you’re an old pro. Topics we’ll cover include:

• Why your service is going public and going viral: a look at today’s digital consumer
• Social media service success stories: Comcast, Southwest Airlines, Zappos, and more
• Understanding virtual service channels:
  • Twitter: A public dialogue that takes place in real time
  • Facebook: Building a community around your brand
  • Virtual communities: Communications channel or feeding frenzy
  • The blogosphere: Everyone has a soapbox
• Do’s and don’ts: How to communicate effectively in a cyber service world

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

John Moore - HP using social support communities to co-create value

John Moore spends a lot of time studying how companies implement ’social CRM’. Currently CTO of consulting firm Swimfish, and an avid blogger (johnfmoore.wordpress.com), John has spent a lot of years as a senior engineer for SaaS apps. Last week John spoke at ParaFest and shared some of his observations about how some ‘name brand’ companies are approaching social support communities.  Take HP. With 2.5 million customers visiting the site every month and 150,000 registered users in the community, John says Hewlett Packard realized early on they needed to treat social support communities in a truly strategic fashion.  They made a solid business case as to how the community would work, the ROI expected, and got very detailed with their plan to bring people into the community. They defined internal experts and trained them on how to interact within the community, even bringing in Microsoft experts as well. Essentially, they use the community to “co-create value”, encouraging a steady stream of feedback from customers – feature requests, bugs noted, you name it.  The head of the support community reviews feature requests weekly, feeding them directly into the product development pipeline.  From there, they’re tied closely to the formal product development process.  According to John, they key is that HP makes it very visible how ideas are being considered, so customers know they are truly helping to ‘co-create’ the products HP releases. And for the company, HP sees big payoffs in several ways. People come back to the community regularly, with a steady increase in registered users, an increase in ideas generated, and an overall reduction in customer support calls. A big caveat John points out: don’t expect to see a reduction in your support team size in rolling out this approach. In fact, you may even see an upfront increase in cost. But the extra spend will reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction in the long run, well worth the investment. John had several other really interesting case studies and great tips on deploying social support communities we’ll cover in future posts.

Watch the recorded version here

With the downturn in the economy, should companies be spending on Customer Service? Unequivocally, yes. It’s the number one initiative that directly affects a company’s most valuable asset: customers.

What should companies invest in? Customer Service Social Media – It reduces operational costs and improves first call resolution, customer loyalty as well as provides a host of other benefits to marketing, sales, product development, and other critical departments. Companies that want to transform their relationships with customers need to move Social Media to the top of their priority list. It should be the number one customer service initiative in 2009.

The webinar provided the basis for developing an ROI for social media and the customer service center. If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Continue the webinar discussion here.

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.