Key Takeaway
If you’re not listening to what your customers are saying on social media, you could be missing out on real profits. Industry leaders like KLM are investing heavily in customer service agents using social media, and employing AI to help, and they’re finding significant returns.
User experience is the new winning strategy
The ever-increasing importance consumers are placing on purchase experience as a reason to buy is not a secret. Today’s consumers are far more interested in the journey and their interaction with a brand than they are in loyalty for the sake of it.
According to marketing expert Shep Hyken at the recent Social Media Marketing World conference, despite reporting positive sentiment, up to 40% of satisfied customers don’t come back. Companies need to provide a predictable, consistent customer experience to retain these users. A big part of that experience is a brand’s direct interaction with its customers – often through social media.
Jay Baer similarly noted, “The best companies in the world are raising the bar of customer expectations,” Baer said. He suggested that companies must do three things to stay ahead: Be faster, be more human and be more proactive than customers expect.
Think social media data is just for the marketing and PR teams to look at? Think again. Social is often the first place your customers are interacting with you, and they’re volunteering not only their feedback, but their advocacy on your behalf. There are golden insights tucked around every corner within your brand mentions – and they can translate into massive savings.
KLM turns social customer service into cash
The story of KLM’s social media innovation is a prime example of a brand that has leveraged Outside Insight to its benefit by implementing social listening to their advantage.
As KLM’s social media manager Gert-Wim ter Haar told VentureBeat, “Social is more and more becoming a profit center. It’s first about service, then brand and reputation, but also about commerce … we have to make money.”
KLM by the numbers
Customer service agents at KLM do far more than respond to complaints – they can almost entirely manage new client bookings via Twitter, Facebook, or other social media – directly connecting social listening to revenue.
If they’re not listening in real time, they’re missing out on cold, hard cash.
AI enters the arena
In 2016, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines became the first major consumer brand to deploy an AI-infused deep learning application, integrating AI from startup DigitalGenius directly into their Customer Relationship Management tool. According to a post on KLM, it “provides a layer of deep learning and artificial intelligence to service agents in real time,” helping the agents to massively accelerate their productivity.
“Applying AI, KLM can handle a greater volume of questions while still maintaining its personal approach and speed,” said Tjalling Smit, Senior Vice President Digital Air France KLM. Through this approach, the standards for customer experience remain high.
According to ter Haar, the result goes beyond revenue, extending into major boardroom decisions that have changed the company by bringing the outside in. “All this is driving us to be more customer-centric.”
