Customer Engagement Provider TouchCommerce Enters Social With A “Let’s Step Over Here” Feature

Marketers talk a lot about communicating with customers on social media. But if there’s a public post from a customer or would-be customer complaining about a product, chances are others will see the back-and-forth posts with the brand before it is resolved or taken elsewhere.

Not exactly a great way to support a brand’s identity.

Today, customer engagement provider TouchCommerce takes a step toward the online equivalent of gently leading an irate customer to a quiet part of the store, where the problem can be resolved.

It is entering social media for the first time with its new TouchSocial feature. It allows a marketer or a customer service agent, having discovered the customer or potential customer through a social listening platform like Hootsuite, to post a message (e.g., “Please click here to chat with us”) and a short URL for that user. The link leads back to a waiting live agent in a chat window on the brand’s site.

The agent will have the original post, source, and username, so she can start the conversation with something like, “Can I help you make that decision about which camera to buy?”

Alternatively, the link can lead back to a personalized product guide on the brand’s site, where choices can lead the user to the sought-after information.

The short link assumes the brand is using TouchCommerce’s RightTouch platform, which offers live chat, web self-service, co-browsing, topic-related videos surfaced for the agent to share, customized online guides, chat-to-live-call and post-chat surveys. In addition to customer service, the platform is intended to increase demand and sales by easing a user’s path toward the right product and info.

TouchCommerce says this kind of direct link from a social query to a live, contextualized agent is unique and isn’t offered by its customer engagement competitors, such as LivePerson, eGain or [24]7.

But the feature is still in its early stages. There is no built-in integration with a customer relationship management (CRM) system, for instance. While the agent might have the immediate post and its context, they don’t have immediate access to the customer’s or would-be customer’s history.

It’s designed for mobile and desktop sites, but not yet for mobile apps, which, of course, include Facebook’s popular app. And the link/message drop-in is done manually by someone who has noticed it on the social listening platform.

All of these things could be automated and more thoroughly integrated through APIs and scripting, VP of sales engineering Adam Stuczynski told me. And perhaps someday, TouchCommerce or another provider will take this kind of “let’s walk over here and talk about it” feature to the next step.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.

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