21 July 2010

Most employees and consumers would prefer to use social networking for business communications, according to a survey conducted by leading research firm Yankee Group and commissioned by Siemens Enterprise Communications.

The study showed average customer satisfaction with current business interactions via social media is just 65 per cent, and that one third of businesses have no formal social networking policies, do not allow the use of social media at work or aren't aware of their company's participation in social networking.

Our research shows that increasingly customers are demanding that business talk to them in the language of their choosing – whether it be Twitter, Facebook, blogging – or the next thing

Chris Hummel, Siemens Enterprise Communications In addition, 70 per cent of consumers want access to company experts and support via social media channels and trust company information provided to them via their social networks, as 50 per cent of respondents use social media daily or several times a day

Nearly 60 per cent of customers feel company outreach via social media would improve their loyalty to that company and most customers feel that companies should be monitoring social media for customer feedback.

"Social media is changing the way businesses, customers and employees interact, and this creates significant opportunities for contact centres and the enterprise as a whole to leverage the integration of these tools into business processes," said Zeus Kerravala, research fellow at Yankee Group. "As integration of social media improves within the contact centre and with unified communications and collaboration, businesses can improve customer interactions and positively impact employee productivity and collaboration."

"Businesses simply must improve their ability to serve consumers using all manner of social media," said Chris Hummel, chief marketing officer at Siemens Enterprise Communications. "Our research shows that increasingly customers are demanding that business talk to them in the language of their choosing – whether it be Twitter, Facebook, blogging – or the next new thing.”

This research follows a study by Maginus, which discovered that only 33 per cent of businesses have a social media strategy in place.

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