Not every quarantine trend has had a long shelf life—if you abandoned your sourdough starter eons ago, you’re not alone. But when it comes to customer service, some habits born out of the pandemic are here to stay. The Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2021 found that 64 percent of customers started using a new support channel last year. Among them, 73 percent say they plan to continue using that channel this year and beyond.
Social media isn’t just the tool of teens—over the past year, it has quickly become one of the fastest-growing channels for customer support, with tickets up 181 percent since the start of the pandemic. Now, more than ever, customers are looking to connect with brands on their favorite social media platforms. In addition to meeting customers where they are, social media is a great method for customer outreach whether or not you pay to promote content.
The year 2020 shook SMB and enterprise businesses across the world. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2021, 75 percent of company leaders surveyed agreed that the global pandemic accelerated the acquisition of new technologies.
Customers want to feel seen and understood by the brands they love and buy. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report, 76 percent of customers expect personalization during their online experiences, including recommendations based on their previous purchases. One way businesses can provide personalized experiences? Create comprehensive customer profiles.
Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your agents provide great experiences.
Providing exceptional customer service is paramount to building brand loyalty—it’s not enough to just have a great product or service. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report, roughly 50 percent of customers would switch to a competitor after just one bad experience. On the flip side, 75 percent are willing to spend more money on a brand that provides a positive experience.
There’s an oft-cited stat that text messages from businesses have a 98 percent open rate, but there’s a lot more to business texting than just outbounding customers. Customer service has been transformed by messaging. In 2020, support requests surged over messaging apps, with WhatsApp seeing 101 percent growth from the previous year. Only 15 percent of surveyed customers said they preferred to use SMS as a customer support channel when available. The lesson?
Many customer service agents reach a point in their career when they decide they want to transition into a new role. Those next steps could take you in many directions: sales, customer success, or people ops, to name a few. But one of the most likely moves is to become a customer service manager. After years of helping customers find answers to their queries and honing your service skills, you’re ready to take on more responsibility.
Businesses work hard to attract customers, and keeping them around takes just as much effort. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report, half of customers say they would switch to a competitor after just one negative experience—that number grows to more than 80 percent after multiple bad experiences. A “bad experience” can happen at any touchpoint in the customer’s journey, from their first interaction all the way to final sale and beyond.
As a customer service agent, being a great communicator means everything. But your ability to communicate well goes beyond listening to what your customers and team members say. You also have to recognize how they’re expressing themselves and adapt your responses accordingly. Understanding the various communication styles can help you improve your relationships with customers and colleagues alike.
