inContact, a provider of cloud contact center and workforce optimization software, has partnered with HelpSocial, providers of an integration platform for customer care and social media, to bring social media customer care abilities to contact center agents using inContact's Open Cloud Platform.
HelpSocial's Social Integration Technology, built on HelpSocial's open API, allows social features to be hand-picked and integrated directly into the inContact contact center platform. It is integrated directly with inContact's Customer Interaction Cloud rather than being offered an add-on social media tool. The HelpSocial toolset also includes a Web application.
Through the integration, contact center agents can instantly match customer records to social profiles. Social media activity is routed directly to available agents, links into CRM systems, and displays customer information related to the social channel interaction.
"It was built specifically for customer service within the social arena," says Jennifer Waite, product marketing manager at inContact. "Companies are now able to have social blended with other channels to maximize agent efficiency while still allowing for the highly specialized service that social demands."
"Customer service via social media is crucial for companies to connect with their customers, and this vital functionality is a key component to a true omnichannel platform," said Paul Jarman, CEO of inContact, in a statement. "We are very excited to provide our customers with an easy-to-use social media channel in the cloud through our partnership with HelpSocial."
HelpSocial, Waite adds, was a great integration partner because it has a lot of synergies with inContact, which was acquired by NICE in May for $940 million.
The integration of HelpSocial will offer inContact customers a breadth of new capabilities, including the following:
- A unified agent experience, allowing agents to view and manage private and public social posts from Facebook and Twitter, merged into the work queue with interactions from all other channels;
- Complex searches for conversations with advanced filtering to eliminate noise; and
- Full product coordination for the agent while providing supervisors with detailed access to dashboards and reporting of social media channel activity.
"You can see all previous posts by the same handle to provide more customized and personalized service," Waite says. "You can conduct complex searches for specific conversations and filter out what could be considered noise or posts that may not require any kind of a response.
"You can be more intelligent about what types of posts get routed to agents for follow-up," Waite continues.
The integrated product currently works with Facebook and Twitter, the two social channels that Waite says have "the highest demand."
InContact likely will add support for LinkedIn and Instagram in the not-too-distant future, according to Waite. "We can add other [social platforms] for customers based on need," she says. "As long as it has the necessary APIs, we can integrate with it. If someone wants it, we can pretty much integrate with it."
Facebook and Twitter are just "launching pads," she adds.
In addition to public posts, the product also supports both private and direct messaging within Facebook and Twitter, allowing companies to take conversations off line and then bring them back on line to publicize the resolution.
"HelpSocial allows businesses to serve customers over social media without disrupting current processes and tools," said Matt Wilbanks, HelpSocial CEO, in a statement. "Working alongside a leader like inContact to bring their customers social as a channel is exciting validation for the role social media plays in customer service."
"In the end, the goal is to help companies realize social's ROI and efficiency gains," Waite concludes.