Facebook integration with Genesys 8.1 in the Call Centre

Introduction

Following on from our existing Twitter integration in the Anana Briefing Centre we recently deployed and activated the Facebook channel as well. We used the stock factory shipping Facebook capability in Genesys eServices Social-Engagement Suite and the default routing strategy in the Routing Designer. This post shows the user experience and the agent experience in beginning the journey of Social Customer Relationship Management in the operational call centre.

Installation

The highlight of the installation has got to be the rather confusing Facebook topography for the relationships between a PAGE (as a celebrity or a business) and the PROFILE (as the identity of the person owning or creating the page). It took several iterations to establish the API keys, trust-tokens and authorizations for the Facebook API integration with the Genesys Social-Engagement engine to work, and I have to admit that trial-and-error and several false-starts eventually caused the appropriate relationship and authorisations to work correctly. This was such a comlex process that it may be worth doing several times to ensure comlete familiarity with it.  Anyway, in the end, we managed to get it done, and we created a relationship between our Genesys Platform in the Anana Briefing Centre and a new PAGE on Facebook. We called the PAGE the ABC Anana Page. Quick favour please LIKE the ABC Anana page as we need 25 LIKES before we can fully integrate the Business Profile as a standalone entity on Facebook!

Dual Embedding

We focus our thoughts in Genesys Social-Engagement about getting Facebook comments into the operational call centre with social-engagement, but it is also important to embed the other eServices channels and options in Genesys into Facebook in the other direction too! Customers are as likely to request a Call Back, or eMail, or ask for a Web-Chat or Co-Browse from within a companies Facebook page as they are from the regular Enterprise web-site.  So, first job, is to use Facebook Markup (FBML) to create the Genesys eServices capability in the Facebook Page itself. We also used this as an opportunity to republish all the Customer Services telephone numbers, opening hours, etc

Step Through of a typical Facebook Interaction

First things first! Let’s have someone go to the Facebook page and post on the Wall.  We asked Ruth, one of our Graphical User Interface Designers in our Engineering Team to drop a note onto the Anana ABC Company Wall on Facebook.  Let’s see what happens!

We make sure of course that all the configuration, and deployment of role, authority, capability, skill and capacity rules are set for an ABC agent, and then login with the Genesys Agent Desktop having now enabled it for the additional Facebook media channel.  Hopefully in a few seconds time we’ll see Ruth’s new comment arrive into the call centre. Did you notice the Live Chat and Contact Us Custom Pages on the left of the Facebook Navigation links too?  This allows Facebook users to link into Genesys eServices channels from Facebook natively too!

Ruth, left a comment on the Company Wall saying “Having a productive day in the office ”.

We can already see the ACTOR name of the person submitting the Facebook comment onto the Company Wall, and its flashing yellow awaiting agent acceptance. Next, the agent accepts the interaction, and is then presented with;

An incredible amount of information is attached with this seemingly innocuous comment! Full details of ALL interactions across ALL channels and MEDIA for this consumer is shown, so triage and best resolution options are evident clearly for the customer services representative based on history and the ‘direction’ of the building CONVERSATION.  You may notice as well that the agent can POST to the WALL, if this is a comment as part of a wider discussion, for example a frenzy over a topic on the Wall, or he/she may post a comment that is threaded to Ruths original post, so it is appropriately nested.

There is a lot of information in the previous picture, so for a full size version please click on the thumbnail

The CSR may now offer a suitable redress for the comment, weighted of course by the actionability, sentiment and classification (purpose) of the original post. Where this user has emailed, phoned, SMS’d or Tweeted any previous interactions then these are available as immediate channels for response to the CSR; they could, for example, respond with an appropriate response in Facebook, and immediately email the subscriber a more detailed and more specific response all within the same interaction.  This powerfully allows the Enterprise to trap and capture opportunity to engage PUBLICALLY whilst offering specific recourse or targetted policy adherence through private media channels.

In the next picture, you will see that the CSR has entered a COMMENT to the POST rather than a NEW POST on the Facebook wall and is preparing to commit the interaction by pressing the COMMENT button.

The CSR is of course 1 of X (many) agents in the Contact Centre who are all able to handle these interactions concurrently. All interactions appear in Facebook carrying the CORPORATE identity and brand, rather than individual named agents (ADMINs in Facebook) terms on the Facebook Wall.

Within a second or two the posted Enterprise COMMENT is immediately placed on the Wall, and the subscriber, Ruth in this case, will get her own Facebook notificaton of the new comment about her POST.  The circle has closed, within seconds of the interaction hitting the Wall.

Of course, the Enterprise comment can be LIKE’d, appearing on further WALLs throughout Facebook and the viral journey begins.

Summary

We’ve already had incredible use-cases explored with Inbound Voice, SMS, Email, Web-Chat, Call-Backs with Twitter and Facebook. Obviously, within the confines of our Briefing Centre we are unconstrained by PROCESS or WORKFLOW but we’ve already had a lot of Enterprises enjoy the blended capability of the Genesys Suite manifest in this way and all are incredibly excited by the Customer Services and Customer Experience that this opens for them.  Given so much of the Call Centre industry is still just about coping with Inbound Voice we’re quite excited at the Anana Team about our ability to quickly explore these horizons with our customers.  We already have 2 engagements to deploy eServices in the manner you see explored in this Blog Series and I know we’ll be writing a lot more about it in the very near future.  Yes, both these first engagements include Twitter and Facebook.  Perhaps we will focus a little on the Business Use-Case scenario’s for these two social giants.  They work in very different ways and we’re looking forward to seeing how the Enterprise decides to embrace the capability.

If you’d like to arrange your own Briefing with us to witness these capabilities first hand then please do not hesitate to contact our team. The eServices workshops are provided free-of-charge.  They can also be done remotely via live meeting.  Let us know if we can help you with your eServices journey.

Oh, if you leave a comment on the ABC Company Wall then please do not be surprised if it takes a while to respond!  We only staff the centre during Briefings and Workshops.

Click on the Badge Below to pop over to the ABC Company Facebook page and watch eServices Social Engagement in action.  Better still, take part as a user!

ABC Anana | Promote your Page too