IT Briefcase Exclusive Interview: Customer-centric Social Business with Tara Sporrer, Moxie Software

There is no questions that social business has opened many new doors for businesses today.

In the below interview, Tara Sporrer from Moxie Software outlines ways in which companies can maximize the benefits of social business by making accessible the “collective smarts” of their organization.

• Q. What do you see as the pros and cons of social collaboration within the workplace?

A. The most important “pro” is the ability to increase efficiency in the workplace by using technology that everyone already knows how to use. Social collaboration changes the way we work by increasing efficiency and empowering employees to perform better. This can ultimately lead to happier, more satisfied employees, which in turn leads to better customer experiences. In addition, there is a real need for business today to attract a new generation of employees, call them the Facebook generation, who expect to use consumer like applications at work.

It’s important to note that social collaboration technology can be a powerful tool for business, if applied in the correct way. The biggest mistake companies make today is deploying a social collaboration tool that is not tightly integrated with existing business processes. If a collaboration tool doesn’t interface with existing internal and external systemsthen you end up with a parallel communicator system, adding additional work to connect employees and failing to deliver value to the business.

• Q. In your opinion, what are the biggest benefits social business can offer to businesses today?

A. Good social business tools help organizations solve a fundamental issue that many business struggle with today – how to best record the collective wisdom of its employees in a simple, searchable, social way. Moxie helps companies solve this problem by providing a Social Knowledge solution that is used to  to collect and make accessible the collective smarts of an organization. For example, an organization using Social Knowledge can quickly source and respond to a customer’s issue.  The biggest advantage of social business is being able to harness employees’ knowledge to best address customers’ issues.

• Q. Can you please explain how Spaces by Moxie can help organizations improve customer communication and internal social collaboration?

A. Spaces by Moxie is the first customer-focused social enterprise platform that brings together customer communication and employee collaboration applications in a single offering. Our solution helps companies better understand and interact with their customers across communication channels, from email to chat to Facebook or the phone – no matter what channel the customer chooses.

Spaces by Moxie also ensures that the knowledge and expertise of an organization is captured and made accessible to everyone – from CEO’s to contact center employees. Moxie’s Social Knowledgebase technology allows multi-channel interactions from customers to be routed to the right experts within the contact center to ensure that the customer gets the right answer in the shortest possible time. This access to knowledge is one of the most crucial aspects of customer communications and a piece of the puzzle that is missing from most customer communication initiatives.

• Q. How can this potentially increase ROI for organizations today?

A. We realize that the core of any business is the customer, and knowing the customer is key to providing award winning customer service. By making the customer the number one priority, Moxie’s platform allows organizations to strengthen their relationships with customers, create brand advocates and drive bottom line results.

Internally, Spaces by Moxie advocates collaboration and efficiency between teams resulting in employees who feel good about their work and are recognized for their achievements. Satisfied employees simply perform better and when employees are performing at their highest level, so does the organization and a a result customers are happier too

• Q. How do Moxie products such as Proactive Chat and Engage+work to help retailers target their perfect customer and communicate with them in a timely and effective manner?

A. For many ecommerce companies Facebook and its 800M+ users represent a massive untapped opportunity. The challenge that every company has to overcome in order to make Facebook work as a commerce platform centers on how to engage Facebook fans and turn them into customers.

Enter Engage+, the first social chat app that leverages Facebook’s social graph to gather and analyze information on visitors and launch unique proactive offers based on public profile information. The idea behind the tool is that brands on Facebook can use it to create a personalized shopping experience directly on Facebook and engage directly with the visitor in real-time, ending the challenge many marketing teams face when trying to turn Likes into revenue.

Tara Sporrer is VP, Marketing and Sales Operations at Moxie Software. In her role, Tara is responsible for delivering corporate communications and marketing programs to positively impact the company’s market presence, revenue achievement, and profitability.