Customer service careers – Tweet to the top

Managers in customer service careers are all now well aware that social media is the new front on which the battle for consumer hearts and minds is to be fought. A number of surveys across the spectrum of industry have found that investment in social media communications features strongly in the business plans of top companies for 2010. In one such survey, StrongMail polled 1,057 companies to find that 59% of them plan to invest yet more in social media marketing.

But it’s not just those in marketing that are going to be affected, it’s those in customer service careers too. StrongMail’s poll had customer loyalty and retention cited as one of the main reasons for social media investment.

In order to combat the effect of negative consumer postings, companies like BT, along with many other firms, have set up their own social media pages. In most cases these pages are there to serve the increasing number of customers favouring this form of contact.

However some customer service jobs now require you to monitor Twitter, Facebook or YouTube for voices saying that they’re discontented with your company. The idea is that you can then try to swiftly resolve customer complaints before they go viral. Some customer service jobs are solely tasked with tweeting and facebooking, (is that a word?) to sort problems with the complainant directly.

So if you’re a demon tweeter, or a fan of the fans of Facebook, a customer service job could be just like your home life – only you get paid for it. In fact, if you can sort out every complaint in just 149 characters a time, your customer service career is likely to take off quicker than Stephen Fry’s twitter campaigns.