IMPROVE REAL-TIME CUSTOMER SERVICE
IMPROVE REAL-TIME CUSTOMER SERVICE
Good customer care is quickly unseating price as the key brand differentiator. Depending on whom you trust, customer experience already has overtaken price and product specifications as the key brand differentiator.
Social Media has pushed the issue of customer relations to the forefront, nowadays, most companies relate with their customers through social media platforms.
Consumer willingness to choose the product or service that offers the best experience and increased market competition, have substantially upped the bar when it comes to customer care.
Real-time customer care is central to this trend, as nobody likes to wait for answers. Most of the customers want an experience of instant feedback on queries, not to be told to wait.
Yet, most businesses still don’t realize they are poor at real-time customer service, if they’re achieving it at all.
Here are some ways to up your game when it comes to real-time customer service:
Centralize Your Customer Data
Making customers feel valued starts with personalization, and this comes from having all customer information in one place so agents can pick up where the conversation left off and see the previous history of interactions.
Anticipate Needs with Analytics
More than half of all agent interactions will be influenced by real-time analytics by 2018. Being able to suggest the next best step or proactively getting ahead of a trending customer service issues even before the customer requests it can pay huge dividends. Analytics also help agents get up to speed fast in a real-time environment.
Be Human (and Wrong Sometimes)
Not only do customers want to be seen as real people, they also want to feel like they’re talking to one. So good real-time customer service makes sure there’s a consistent brand voice to all customer interaction, and agents are encouraged to act human and not like robots.
Empower Agents to Get Things Done
People expect you to solve their problem here and now, but agents too often are constrained. This can be crushing in a real-time environment. The most important thing is actually changing the culture of your service organization and empower your representatives. Put protections in place (like real-time agent monitoring!), but unchain agents to solve tricky customer problems themselves when possible.
Beef-Up Self-Serve Options
One of the biggest changes that can be made to support real-time customer service in a better way is to empower both agents and customers with consistent and easy-access self-service resources.
Make Customer Service Easy for Smartphones
Apps should have a link to real-time customer service. Web pages optimized for mobile should make it easy to interact with an agent. Brands and organizations can’t just have a service app, thus this means customer service has to adjust to a mobile-first mentality.
Be Ready for Customers 24/7
Respond fast and resolve issues quickly, everyone would like a customer service that is available at all times. Real-time has a specific meaning, it means real-time. This can be a burden for businesses that are not used to exceptional customer service, but it also is an opportunity.
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