Newly Available Parature for Facebook Helps Companies Increase “Face-Time” while Keeping Support and New Customer Acquisition Costs Low

Vienna, VA. August 12, 2010—Parature, a global leader in on-demand customer service software,  today announced the general availability of Parature for Facebook,  the industry’s first and only customer service application that enables direct customer engagement through Facebook. The Parature for Facebook application, delivered on-demand through Parature’s software-as-a-service model, helps companies, educational institutions and government associations directly engage with their Facebook fans to resolve service issues, answer pre-sales questions and conduct one-to-one customer interactions, all within Facebook and accessible through an easily installed Support Tab on a Facebook page.

Several new and existing Parature customers have signed on as users of Parature for Facebook, but language learning software giant Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE: RST) made history today when it became the very first company in the world to unveil support and service through Facebook to its more than 6,000 fans.

“We are excited to be the first company, ever, to provide live support through Facebook.  Our Facebook presence is key to our customer acquisition and retention strategies, and we knew we needed a way to foster stronger relationships and resolve any questions or issues encountered by our growing Facebook fan base,” said Jay Topper, senior vice-president of customer success,  Rosetta Stone. “Parature for Facebook empowers us to do just that, while fully integrating Facebook as an additional channel into our customer success operations.”

Parature for Facebook is designed to meet the market’s increasing demand to provide rich and meaningful communication, service and support through the world’s most popular social media platform, Facebook.  Recently surpassing Google as the most visited website according to Hitwise and announcing it reached its 500 million member milestone,  Facebook is a cultural force that is changing how and with whom people communicate. Companies desiring stronger and more profitable customer relationships need to figure out how to use social media to build their brand and drive more business through the emerging channel.

“Social Media has taken over several business functions over the past few years, and most organizations are beginning to understand how Twitter and Communities work for Customer Service,” said Esteban Kolsky of ThinkJar, LLC. “The continued migration from several social networks,  as well as the rise of Facebook as the destination for more and more customers has put organizations in a particular uncomfortable situation –  most of them are not even sure whether Facebook can or should be treated as a channel for Customer Service, or what to do if they decide to move into it. As a result, most of the implementations we are seeing are escalation recommendations for clients.  Research has shown that companies that engage customers in the channels of the customer choice are going to have higher customer satisfaction. It is time for companies to consider how to engage customers across all social channels seamlessly, as they have done for email, chat, and other customer service channels.”

Prior to Parature for Facebook, companies had to manually monitor and respond to individual posts. Now, organizations can take advantage of a fully integrated solution that automates and streamlines the service and support process within Facebook. By offering customers direct access to service teams through Wall posts, private chat sessions or tickets,  the application enables one-to-one engagement in a very social forum.

Faster and Lower Cost Issue Resolution with Live Chat, Ticket Submission, Knowledgebase Access and More

Parature for Facebook includes several features all directly accessible through a Facebook page and designed to help customers gain access to sales, service representatives and tools that help rapidly resolve service issues and answer questions while keeping support and new customer acquisition costs low for companies.

Parature for Facebook features are accessible through the application’s Facebook Support Tab, which is easily installed on any corporate Facebook page, and include:

Real-time Facebook Wall Monitoring for Quick Customer Response
Via the ‘Parature Page Monitor’ all relevant posts containing chosen keywords will be read from the wall and sent to the Parature Service Desk as a ticket, enabling service representatives to easily monitor and respond to otherwise unmanageable wall posts and comments without ever leaving their Parature software;

Knowledgebase Search Right from Facebook
The ‘Find an Answer’ feature enables customers visiting a page to enter a search term and receive the relevant answer directly from the organization’s knowledgebase without ever leaving Facebook.  Additionally, the customer can use the ‘Ask a Question’ feature for resolution if their question wasn’t answered via the aforementioned method;

Live Chat Direct from a Fan Page
A customer visiting a page can ‘Chat with an Agent’ to discuss a service problem, issue, or to ask a question directly from Facebook. The representative will respond to the Facebook user via Parature Chat™ for quick issue resolution and a rich one-to-one interaction;

Sharing a Customer Service Experience
Using the ‘Share’ feature, a customer who uses the support functionality within Facebook can share their answers and service experiences on their personal wall; attracting new customers and building positive brand perception for organizations

Parature for Facebook is available as a stand-alone application, or as a component of the complete Parature Customer Service™ software suite. All Parature software support solutions are delivered on-demand in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment.

“With today’s release of Parature for Facebook, Parature becomes the first software company, ever, to provide organizations the ability to extend their sales, support and marketing operations to Facebook and provide direct engagement,” said http://www.parature.com/team_DukeChung.aspx Duke Chung, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Parature]. “We are extremely proud to be the first to market and to, once again,  demonstrate our commitment to innovation by delivering a cutting-edge product that addresses evolving business issues for our customers.”

Parature, Inc.
Parature enables organizations to better serve, support, engage with and retain their customers via the Web. Industry-leading, on-demand Parature Customer Service™ software provides customer service organizations with a comprehensive, multi-channel way to meet the growing expectations of their customers. With more than 10 years experience, Parature serves organizations in a wide variety of industries worldwide and helps support more than 16 million end users.  Parature is among Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Software Companies and is the recipient of numerous product, technology,  and leadership awards. Today, the Parature name is synonymous with innovation and value in Web-based customer service software, strategies and best practices. Parature is headquartered in Vienna, Virginia with offices in San Francisco and the U.K.  For more information, visit www.parature.com or follow @parature on Twitter.

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