The customer service experience is one of the most important aspects of a sales-driven business. When consumers have a good one, they are more likely to purchase again and to refer friends and family. This is all in addition to establishing a quality reputation as a business that takes care of those that work with them. Customer experience is different from good customer service, in any case.
Going into the New Year, businesses need to understand trends shifting their competition’s business and how consumers and clients engage with their vendors. In addition, with the landscape of customer service changing so much over the past few years, client expectations and the goals of the businesses that serve them are also changing. Many of these trends are responses to the noticeable economic and social changes happening worldwide, while others have remained consistent over time.
Customer service business process outsourcers (BPOs or “outsourcers”) have similar goals and challenges to in-house operations—and some additional ones of their own. They’ve got to keep several plates spinning at all times such as: Do they have a secret sauce that helps them to achieve that?
Small businesses may be used to handling customer concerns as they come by simply taking calls or complaints on the spot. However, as businesses and their clientele both grow, this kind of impromptu system becomes unviable. Too many complaints come through too many channels, requiring businesses to find a better solution. If not, they will almost certainly contend with low customer satisfaction and potential legal issues.
Customer service is a complex process. Software tools can help businesses simplify this process, and can also help improve the customer experience by improving client perceptions during interactions to settle questions or concerns. This improves customer satisfaction, and in turn, makes consumers more open to making repeat purchases. Such software tools vary in feature sets, but their general purpose is to make the ticket-handling process more efficient.
Customer service (CS) seems like a simple enough concept on the surface. And yet, the practices and preparation required—to provide a truly unique customer experience and create loyal clients—take a greater depth of understanding and experience to get things right. This is especially true for meeting the needs of businesses, which are naturally more complex and comprehensive than those of individual consumers.
Understanding and measuring customer sentiment and health is a critical aspect of running a successful business. It allows you to gauge how your customers feel about your brand, products, and services, and make adjustments as needed to improve the customer experience. By regularly tracking customer health, businesses can make informed decisions that lead to increased customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue.
Your customer experience is your business growth driver. Unfortunately, the gap between what companies think they’re delivering and what customers believe is wide; 87% of companies believe their customer experience is excellent, but only 11% of customers agree. So, if you use your customer experience as a growth strategy, you must address your customer service management system first.
According to Gartner, when customers are able to find resolutions at the end of high-effort experiences, 96% are more likely to be disloyal to brands, and 81% are likely to share negative word-of-mouth. This is why it’s crucial for you to have a ticket escalation process. Read this guide to understand.
Integrations are critical to a strong customer experience because they help your software connect and become a unified service platform that shows a full customer journey. This can provide insight that helps you continuously improve.
