Managing corporate social media could be the next new addition to outsourcing bucket. This has been slowly gaining ground thanks to the red hot social media boom in Silicon Valley and the wave of adoption worldwide. But this doesn’t come with its usual questions and concerns on risks vis-à-vis benefits in outsourcing or keeping it inhouse.

Very few companies have ventured so far in outsourcing this function sometimes in bits and pieces, while others are slowly looking at the timing while others seem to be tinkering at the edges. In a recently poll, Enterprises identified social media among the top five CRM delivery operations that they would consider outsourcing in the coming 12 months.

Offshoring social customer service needs some hand holding whether you are having your own team members offshore or outsourcing it to your vendor. Managing your social media channels, like Twitter and Facebook poses some level of challenge given that it is an integral part of every business today both big and small as this revolves around their communication strategy as part of their consumer reach out. Many companies are investing in hiring its own resources or third party specialists to help them gain some footing and not be left behind in the race.

Many of pure play firms and outsourced vendors are investing in upgrading themselves with knowledge to service their clients. As the traditional outsourcing channels are seeing some level of saturation, the slow rise of this medium is attracting the attention of traditional BPO players that are looking at this opportunity. Where there are already established relationships, outsourced vendors are able to show their expertise to garner some traction and also revenue from this new stream.

There are very few niche specialists or solution providers that have some level of expertise to manage social media channels. The providers themselves are trying to keep up with the rapid pace of change in the medium itself but still offer expertise given their sole focus and with their limited success are able to help integration of customer services to make this a holistic experience for companies vying to make a mark in the social media space. This is now morphing slowly from being just a marketing tool that it started as.

There is some level of comfort in managing the traditional communications channels in an outsourced mode be it voice, video or email however social media poses its own challenges due to geographical, cultural, adoption and knowledge reasons. Many firms are still keeping a firm grip on owning this themselves with limited outsourcing planned fearing inept handling or inadequate loyalty in dealing with the customers by an outsourced vendors. This will change as vendors mature enough and present themselves with alternatives and examples of their expertise for clients to slowly allow them into this space. Right now the market needs to mature and both sides need to invest in the solutions and not to forget the training aspect as they learn more about exploiting this media to its fullest extent in their endeavor to gain customers loyalty and business.

Teams bring together individuals with diverse perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. Working inclusively and collaboratively allows us to deliver unique insights and greater value to our clients. Teamwork also spurs continuous innovation to help grow and strengthen our business.

In an outsourced environment, this proves even more challenging with dispersed resources impacted by time and geographical constraints.

We know that teams and groups fluctuate between different stages of development before becoming fully highly functioning; however, needs of individual members’ on the team similarly can change, impacting individual and overall team effectiveness.

According to Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, these individual needs include:
1. Understanding the expectations of their performance;
2. Understanding how others on the team perceive their contributions;
3. Feeling a comfortable fit between personal and team values;
4. Knowing what learning and growth opportunities exist.

If all these needs are met by the team and leader, it increases the odds that individual team members are highly engaged with a reoccurring sense of achievement. If some, but not all, of these needs are met, we can expect these team members’ engagement levels and productivity to decrease over time.

As a leader, how can you ensure your team has a strong foundation? Focus on helping individuals fulfill needs #1 and #2 through regular feedback discussions… this will make it easier for individuals to fulfill needs #3 and #4.

while it is easy to deal with resources onsite and present in front of you, it becomes important to visit offshore locations where most resources are or if you have few one-off resources outside allow them come over to a common meeting place once in a while to establish that rapport with you and the broader team members and provide a forum to accomplish the above.

Actively taking steps to strengthen the effectiveness your team will result in an organizations overall ability to meet, and exceed, clients’ expectations better and faster.

Why not take the first step today?