Social customer service provider Sentiment is teaming up with systems integration company IP Integration to help inject social solutions into existing contact centers. As contact center providers rush to offer social tools, Sentiment and IP Integration are working to ensure that social solutions are no longer considered an afterthought.
Sentiment's technology will enable IP Integration clients, which include companies such as Avaya and InkHouse, to centralize their social data in the contact center and obtain a single view of the customer journey. According to Leon Chaddock, CEO of Sentiment, data centralization is one of Sentiments most powerful capabilities. "Because the data is unified, agents can work on multiple accounts and still have full insight into posts, comments, and conversations," Chaddock says.
Additionally, Sentiment will provide access to its engagement features, as well as its performance monitoring and reporting capabilities. For example, Sentiment can equip contact centers with more streamlined agent inboxes that improve workflow by filtering out social noise and ensuring that mentions are routed to the right representative. Because processes are simplified, response time is also improved. "Users can organize messages and posts by priority to make sure that urgent requests and messages are processed right away," Chaddock explains.
For IP Integration's customers, the functionality that Sentiment brings to the table will add a level of automation that they were previously missing. "At IP Integration, we're all about ensuring customers get the best possible service from the companies they work with," said Neil Boxer, chief technology officer at IP Integration, in a statement. "Social plays a critical role in today's communications environment, and this partnership will enable us to deliver a solution that will streamline social into our client's core contact center environments and enable them to be ahead of the game with both responding to and monitoring what's being said about them."
While many organizations have embraced social engagement technology, Chaddock says many are still on the fence about automating their social processes. The primary risk is losing touch with customers and delivering impersonal support, he says. Still, there are ways to automate social without losing authenticity. "This is like blending cutting-edge technology and AI insights with the manner of a local butcher or florist," says Chip Bell, customer service expert and author. "Replicating that same local customer intimacy in a fashion that is both highly personalized and effortless has been very challenging when there are millions of customers, especially in a multichannel world. The butcher or florist only had to keep up with 50 or 100 customers and only face-to-face or ear-to-ear. This new integration can bring a valuable customer experience now with cost-effective scale."
As the partnership grows, Chaddock says the two companies will be working on integrations together, pushing contact centers toward truly omnichannel capabilities.