Customer Care in the Social and Mobile Era
Most business leaders today understand that providing a great customer care experience has a substantial impact when it comes to customer retention and increased revenue. Nevertheless, the majority of companies still look at their customer care operations as an unnecessary cost to the business that needs to be minimized or eliminated altogether.
It was Zappos who became the shining example of the impact that excellent customer service culture can have on a company’s bottom line. Zappos made it their mission to provide the best service possible, crowning “Deliver WOW through service” as their main slogan. Thereafter, management books were written outlining this integral value, with many companies inevitably trying to mold their business accordingly. Most who tried to replicate the Zappos approach were unsuccessful however, having already invested copious amounts of capital toward achieving this model. Most companies claimed that unless they were established as Zappos from the very beginning – with service being the focal point of their initial company DNA – it would be impossible to make the cultural shift and adopt this new way of doing business. Due to these short fallings, CEOs and Customer Experience leaders eventually rejected this model and retreated to their archaic and substandard customer service habits.
However today’s customer expects more, and although companies invested 1.3 trillion dollars on customer service overall and 18 billion solely on contact center software, a recent study showed that 66% of consumers who switch brands do so because of poor customer service that they received. It is clear then that the solution to keeping businesses and consumers happy is not going to come from investing more money into traditional – albeit less effective – customer service channels, but rather approaching the situation from an entirely different perspective through Social Messaging Customer Care.
Today’s engagement technologies are enabling us to connect more easily and seamlessly than ever before. The rise of the ‘always connected’ mobile apps and Social Messaging applications enable us to effortlessly communicate with our friends and family – send messages, organize get-togethers, order food, set up meeting points, order an Uber, etc. – without ever picking up the phone and making a call. This is heavily impacting the way companies are providing customer service.
So, how are Social Messaging apps different than conventional customer service software? For one they are persistent, enabling customers to see the full conversation every time they open the app. Two, they are device agnostic, allowing consumers to switch from one device to the other without “disconnecting” the conversation. They are asynchronous, allowing for the switch between real and non real-time to occur seamlessly. For businesses, when combined with management platforms like Conversocial, these apps provide a more cost effective customer management solution. Agents can now focus on the conversations that require concrete actions on their end, avoiding the idle times that are inherent to traditional channels such as voice and LiveChat. What’s more, these Social Messaging channels were built with automation in mind, making the implementation of front end and back end automation that much easier.
With the right blend of automation, routing, prioritization, and reporting to measure a company’s success, customer service can become a more cost effective channel without compromising the customer experience. By using the right software platforms, companies can use the same Social Messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Apple Business Chat, Twitter DM, Wechat etc., to provide customer service at a fraction of the traditional cost: breaking the CX to cost equation. Companies can provide outstanding customer service at overall lower costs, which will be more effective than traditional channels and will have a positive, lasting impression among their customers at the same time.
With over 4 billion consumers already using Social Messaging apps, ask yourself what you as a business need to be able to manage these conversations at scale. With our help, you too can join the Social Messaging revolution
The Most Important Elements of Customer Experience
- Meeting customer expectations
- Building rapport with customers
- Addressing customer conflicts
- Personalization
- Creating a seamless experience
- Brand trust
“Customer expectations are being redefined every day and the ability to meet basic expectations is table stakes. We are increasingly being offered experiences that are highly customized, whether it is companies like Amazon who provide variety of delivery of goods at lightning fast speeds, or services like Spotify that are able to understand musical preferences and tailor playlists. Personalization at scale will continue to grow as a trend that will enable distinctive and memorable experiences.”
The Biggest Benefits of Your Data and Analytics Function
- Greater collaboration between departments-42%
- Increased sales and revenue-33%
- Increased customer retention-31%
- Faster to react to customer needs-35%
- Strategy is driven by data-26%
- Better engagement with customers-33%
According to our research North American companies feel the biggest benefit of their data and analytics fucntion is ‘greater collaboration between departments. In contrast European companies believe it to be the speed they can react to customer needs.
Download Customer Experience Trends for 2019
