Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have transformed communication and business must react swiftly, writes Dominic Ryan.

The fact that you may well be reading this Business Herald article online via your smartphone is evidence itself of just how fast and how far communication has evolved.

We live in a very different world today, one in which our thoughts can be shared in an instant with a potentially global audience. For families and friends, the ability to get together online from all corners of the planet has brought many closer together. For writers and thinkers, artists and musicians, the growth in popularity of online social media platforms has brought incredible opportunities for sharing talent and attracting a following.

In many countries, media platforms such as Facebook have been instrumental in helping to reshape political thinking and bring about radical social change.

There has, of course, also been a major impact on business, and nowhere more so than in the area of customer care. The past decade alone has seen social media transform how business is conducted. Contact centres have undergone an astonishing transformation, moving from the old model that was built on the idea of an 'expense' centre; today, thanks to improved analytics of customer needs and wishes, a satisfactory one-to-one telephone experience is seen as integral, if not vital, to good business practice. Perhaps, even more importantly, the 'voice of the customer' has taken on a radically new definition: it is louder, it is more articulate and it is everywhere.

Customers are offering their opinions on goods and services on every conceivable media platform, to be viewed by thousands, sometimes millions, of their peers. As well as the most popular sites, such as Facebook, we are using organisations' own online forums and chatrooms to post feedback - both negative and positive.

This unprecedented level of customer engagement has meant that companies have needed to up their game. Suddenly, the public's perception of an organisation's reputation can rest on a single Tweet.

It's a development that BT takes seriously, as evidenced in its response to a solitary tweet back in April of 2009. It was then that BT launched its @BTCare Twitter ID, after musician Mike Skinner (aka The Streets) had tweeted his dissatisfaction with BT Vision. With around 26,000 followers at that time, his words quickly found traction among his many fans.

When BT quickly resolved the issue, however, he came back on Twitter and thanked the company. It was a win-win result for both the musician and BT and this first Twitter encounter became the strong foundation for everything the organisation has done on social media since.

In fact, BT was one of the first major brands to adopt a proactive approach to customer service on Twitter, ensuring that it is easier for customers to resolve their service queries. When one considers that Twitter has around 225 million monthly active users worldwide, who send an average 500 million tweets every day, the magnitude and importance of being able to engage with this particular medium becomes obvious.

Moreover, it's the first port of call for many BT customers: in fact, around 35% of those who tweet BT will not have phoned or emailed first. Their messages are picked up by specialist teams, who are based in Northern Ireland and are acknowledged experts in customer service on social media - not only Twitter, but also Facebook, YouTube and community forums. Over the years, this BTCare team has replied with more than 568,000 tweets to customers, helping them with everything from orders and faults to queries about BT Sport content.

BT also has two Twitter channels for businesses: @btbusinesscare deals specifically with customer service issues, while @btbusiness is a marketing channel that keeps followers up-to-date with BT Business news, events and the latest developments in products and services. It also has a dedicated @BTSport presence, set up prior to the channel's launch in August 2013.

The power of Twitter in all areas of life certainly cannot be underestimated, especially in times of major crisis. When London found itself in the grip of the riots in 2011, there was a sudden surge in the number of 999 calls. BT tweeted a message asking people to only call 999 in an emergency. Within 20 minutes call volumes had dropped by an astonishing 40% as people re-tweeted the message and helped spread the word. It's the perfect example of the positive power of communication.

Nigel Elliot is BT social media channels manager. He points out: "Our social media team has adopted a number of innovative strategies for delivering excellent customer service, but foremost in our thinking is making it easy for people to get the help they need from BT.

"We also aim to resolve each customer's query at first point of contact; we know that for the majority of people their tweet won't be the first time they have raised their issue with BT.

"Another key component of our social media contact strategy is that we act in an open and transparent way. A good example of this is when we tweet service outage messages so our customers know we're working on a problem that might affect them, and they can then share that with their social connections. It's also a guiding principle when we share content with our BT.Com Community Forum contributors and listeners."