While few will dispute that social media has transformed how marketers engage customers, only in the last few years have customer support organizations truly embraced social as a service strategy. However, as companies like HP demonstrate, those that make social customer care a core component of their service menu reap substantial rewards.

As we recently highlighted, HP’s commitment to providing social service is paying off big—customers are getting faster resolution through their channels of choice, and HP is experiencing improved agent productivity, higher net promoter scores, and quicker response times. For example in Europe, HP’s social media support agents can handle up to 40 percent more customers per day than phone agents, and the average handle time for Facebook and Twitter is three times quicker than chat and twice as fast as phone support.

Which begs the question: Why aren’t all companies leveraging social customer care to drive similar results?

According to Gartner, it’s only a matter of time—they expect that by 2020, 90% of companies will be using social media for customer service. Yet in order to meet that objective, Garter contends companies need to start taking action today.

In its recently published ‘How to Manage Social Media Engagements for Customer Service’ report, Gartner notes several challenges that must be addressed and highlights actions brands must take to meet them head on. Among the highlights:

• The report describes how many organizations are struggling to meet 24/7 social service demands, and provides advice for determining how many customer service representatives are needed to address the channel.
  

• It identifies a lack of consistent approaches to providing social customer care and how bifurcating social care and traditional care (such as phone, email, etc.) can provide an inconsistent customer experience and negatively impact results.
  

Whether your organization is well on its way to providing social customer service--or just putting your plans in place--the report includes valuable insights that will help you succeed. Now is the time to act, 2020 will be here before we know it.

Download your copy today!