Consumers today need customer service assistance less and less, as technology offers them more and more ways of availing services and sending brand feedback on their own. This is what Forbes claimed in a recent article, saying that the advent of smart, portable, personal devices resultantly smartened customers and reduced their need to go through sales and customer support representatives.
In lieu of reps, people now turn to self-help options such as social media and customer relations apps. With these, consumers could get information or process transactions with just a few clicks, thus lessening customer engagement via phone conversations.
For some businesses, this trend can be detrimental to their direct sales efforts. Smart businesses, on the other hand, see this as an advantage. They understand that while call volumes are lessening, the need to have communication channels that are available round-the-clock is still there. Leveraging on the multi-channeled trend, wise companies catch up with today’s savvy market by smartening their customer service delivery through these ways:
• Centralizing databases
Product and customer information should be stored in a database that is accessible to all customer support agents regardless of the channel they use to deliver service. This way, the information a customer sent through your brand’s social media page becomes available to the phone representative, should the customer decide to make a follow-up call.
This also ensures that the customers’ contact details and product preferences are fresh and relevant, thus allowing salespeople to offer goods that match the customers’ needs.
• Aligning approaches
Like info unification, customer support delivery should be consistent across all channels. If you give real-time replies to people who request service via apps, then this promptness should also be present in your phone lines and social networking accounts. Moreover, product details and updates on availability should be disseminated to all relevant departments regardless of the platform the customers use to get service. So if a sales representative tells a potential buyer that a certain product is available for shipment, this same answer should also be reflected on your e-commerce website and all customer service channels.
• Keeping in touch
Technology has given you various means of reaching your market, but it should not be limited to that function.
Stay with the customer even after the purchase has been made. Pulse how well your product has been received by tracking your market’s online activity or by reading online impressions about your brand. Then if you see an issue brewing, take a proactive approach by solving the problem before the customer could even ask for help.
Enabling customers to find answers and get service quickly through any platform they choose is the present standard for customer care. With this said, the emergence of self-service technologies should inspire businesses to self-improve.
Open Access BPO offers customer service and sales solutions to growing and established companies around the world. Visit our website or join us on Google+ to partner with us.