Bringing in social media communications via an analytics package from Buzzient.

We've had several posts recently on the intersection of contact centers and social networking--Gary Audin and Brian Riggs both addressed the potential for using social media communications as one channel for inbound communications to the contact center. And when our team was in Indianapolis last week, we got a similar story from Interactive Intelligence.

Interactive has struck a deal with a social media analytics company named Buzzient, which is able to set alerts on given words or terms--a company's name or another keyword--and also assign positive or negative values to the mentions. In a new mashup, Interactive will route social media communications that's picked up by Buzzient, and feed it into Customer Interaction Center (CIC), the Interactive Intelligence contact center suite. The Buzzient-captured communications come in as ACD objects, so CIC can track this activity using ACD-style reporting on the social media that Buzzient pulls in, explained Rachel Wentink, Interactive's director of product management.

Just about every major customer-facing enterprise is attempting to grapple with social media and get a handle on what customers are saying about them, Rachel noted; some companies, like Best Buy, even do some customer support over Twitter. But pulling social media notices into a suite like CIC and reporting on it gives enterprises the kind of hard data they're used to getting from the contact center.

"It can really help managers get a better handle on it," Rachel Wentink said. "Rather than coming into a meeting and just saying: Hey, there's a lot going on out there."

The advantage of Interactive's initial approach with Buzzient is that it's easy for the customer to implement, she added. They simply contract with Buzzient for its services, and import the data into CIC. In the future, Interactive may pursue a tighter relationship with Buzzient, embedding the Buzzient analytics directly into the CIC web portal, depending on customer interest in the initial integration.

Enterprises definitely need to have a more systematic way of addressing social media mentions--whether it's for business opportunities or customer service needs. Interactive seems to have found a quick way to get its customers into the flow as they try to work this new channel into their contact center systems.