While traditional communication channels remain, customer service organizations that completely ignore web 2.0 technologies do so to their own detriment, warns Audrey William, senior research manager at consulting firm, Frost and Sullivan.

Individual users are increasingly drawn by functionalities afforded by web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, social networking sites, video-sharing sites like YouTube, interactive worlds like Second Life and collaborative tools like Wikipedia.

Consequently, customer service methodology has changed as organizations study how clients are now contacting them, William notes.

Impact on contact centers

"While contact centers will continue to rely mainly on telephones for communications, use of e-mail, the internet and social networking technologies will grow in importance," William says.

She states that contact centers will be driven to adopt web 2.0 technologies by desire to increase customer feedback channels. Other driving factors include differentiating customer service experiences and increasing first call resolution.

As more customers use mobile phones and other communication devices, more will also expect to be contacted through preferred devices. William foresees more contact centers sending confirmation of a booking or purchase details through SMS over time.

Thanks to social networking sites, customers can easily promote a company's product or service to other users informally. The same goes for negative consumer feedback, further highlighting the significance of web 2.0 to enterprises.

Multiple contact channels

In the contact center applications market (excluding voice), there has been a steady increase in demand for e-mail and web collaboration applications, William notes.

She adds that enterprises can enhance customer service experience by inventing more easily-navigated websites. Establishing systems to connect self-service transactions on a web portal to a contact center would also be a wise move.

"Unfortunately, most enterprises fail to take such actions today, with self-service websites and contact centers still operating in silos," William says. She adds that by connecting both areas, customer service managers can better understand customers' needs through blogs or web chats.

Some organizations are also differentiating customer service experience, according to William. "Besides reaching an agent by e-mail and web chat, customers can also navigate for information and participate in feedbacks, polls and blogs through a web 2.0 portal."

Unified communications

Unified communications (UC) applications, that bring together several communication channels to facilitate seamless interactions, can increase first call resolution instances.

For example, an agent who is unable to resolve a customer problem by phone can immediately use instant messaging and presence technologies to reach an expert. The expert may be located outside the contact center or even another country.

Several organizations have started to embrace web 2.0 technologies. For example, Tata Motors has launched a website to allow customers to participate in blogs and forums.

According to William, customers having a true web 2.0 experience should be able to post a query and get replies through e-mail or real time web chat without information being repeated.

Re-thinking customer service

"With clients expecting a seamless experience when dealing with contact centers or navigating web portals, companies will need to re-evaluate customer service strategies," William says.

She advises enterprises to deploy contact center tools like voice portals, e-mail and web chat to work alongside web 2.0 technologies and UC applications.

UC, business intelligence and CRM vendors are keen to benefit from this marketing opportunity. "Organizations are also expected to adopt a 'wait-and-see' approach by observing how their peers develop customer service strategies with web 2.0," William notes.

She expects enterprises to be initially reluctant in allowing web 2.0 technologies like blogs and forums to be part of customer service strategy. However, she warns that completely ignoring these communication channels may damage a company's ability to better understand its customers.