Who do you buy from? If you think about it, you will find you buy from people you know and trust. Humans are social animals. People tend to trust organizations that appeal to their human emotions. People trust brands that deliver consistent experiences, treat them with respect and listens to their needs.
If your company isn’t ‘customer obsessed’ yet, you need to step up your game. In the age of social, negative consumer experiences can have a devastating effect on your bottom-line. According to a survey, 96% of customers won’t tell you about their negative experience, yet will tell 15 of their friends. But, 81% of consumers surveyed said they will do repeat business if they are happy with the service.
A smartly run business will not only preserve existing customer relationships but will always be on the lookout for ways of improving the overall customer experience. Here are 6 simple steps to give your client experience a boost.
Step 1) Define Your Customer Experience (CX)
What is your brand promise? How do you want to be remembered? What kind of customers do you have? What does an ideal customer experience look like to them? A positive customer experience should be able to fulfill your customer's demands for speed, convenience, hospitality, and knowledge.
Step 2) Embed CX Into Your Philosophy
Once you’ve defined your ideal customer experience, the next step is to translate your vision to the company philosophy. Building a ‘customer-centric’ business requires setting the correct standards, hiring the right people, providing proper training, deploying the correct technology and listening to your customer.
Step 3) Be Available And Be Engaged
As a customer yourself, you must have had your fair share of call diversions to a monotonous recording that is unavailable every time you call. It is annoying, to say the least! Do you want your customers to go through that? You must find different ways of staying available to your customer, when they need it.
Investing in the correct Customer Service Management (CSM) software can pay dividends here. The best CSM tools allow you to stay available through various channels including chat, call, email, alerts, and apps. Automated routing ensures the correct queries get redirected to the correct employee to resolve the issue as fast as possible. Because, almost as annoying as not being able to reach customer support is, reaching someone who can’t solve your issue is far worse.
Step 4) Hire The Correct Staff
Strategic decision making is one thing, implementing is another. Hiring the right staff helps you deliver your message. Some people just aren’t cut out for customer service jobs. It is really a tough job, and you should be on the lookout for qualities like patience, empathy, adaptability, communication skills, and problem-solving skills.
Step 5) Listen To Feedback
However, much thought you put into your customer service plan, it won’t be perfect. Listening to your customers through open communication channels is the best way to weed out flaws in your processes or products. Not only will you be able to provide a better product as a result, but it will also score you brownie points for loyalty when they see you listening.
Step 6) Investing In The Right Technology
In today’s competitive market, it is nearly impossible to achieve an efficient customer service without enterprise customer support solutions. You only have to look as far as Jeff Bezos and Amazon, that have built an empire on enterprise customer support technologies. Bezos famously swears by his philosophy that top notch customer service will never go out of fashion. A philosophy that has seen him become the world’s richest man.
The best CSM software like ServiceNow CSM affords you features like:
* Case and Major Issue Management
* Intelligent Routing
* Omni-Channel
* Customer Data Management
* Visual Task Assignment
* Visual Workflow and Automation
* Self-Service
* Field Service Management
* Service Management for Issue Resolution
* Reports and Dashboards
* Performance Analytics
* Operations Management
* Project Portfolio Management
which help you get more ROI from your investment.
If you can’t find the correct way to use technology to reach your customer service goals, why not outsource your customer support needs? Managed service partners like ProV help match you to the best tools for your industry.
We are also preferred partners for ServiceNow, and provide dedicated services for Customer Service Management and Customer Relationship Management. To learn more about how we help companies like yours build a successful customer journey, drop a comment below or contact us today.
