Companies need to plan and strategize social customer support on both sides of the firewall-internal process and policies and external customer experience goals.

Inside the firewall, Dell's social strategy starts with a core team that is responsible for training, governance and social platform testing. This group of more than 3,500 Dell certified social media and community professionals also engages with customers via social media.

There is also a dedicated social team at Dell providing customer and technical support resolution via social. The team, Dell Social Outreach Services (SOS), was formed more than two years ago, mainly because of the increase in conversations related specifically to "Dell support" that were taking place. The social support team, approximately 80 strong, serves customers globally in 11 languages.

"The core of what we do is listen to conversations where customers indicate a need for technical help from Dell and we engage in those conversations and offer support," said , Dell's SOS team director. "The Dell Social Outreach team will see those cases through to resolution."