Good customer service is good for your return on investment (ROI) since good customer service means a better customer experience for your customers. Your business is much more likely to thrive and result in revenue if your customers are happy with your services. These happy customers make repeated purchases, can contribute to user-generated content, and also refer your brand to their friends, families, and acquaintances. Hence, all of these activities from the consumers can lead to a thriving ROI for your brand.
The advent of the internet and technology has changed the way people shop for products or services, interact with the brands, hunt for products, purchase them in a way they find convenient, and also share positive and negative feedback for the brands to work on. For instance, if customers want to buy the Xfinity internet services, they can do so from the Xfinity website, instead of having to purchase them from the retail store. The internet services would be customized according to their demands, and if satisfied, they would make an online payment for Xfinity services. Moreover, customers can also reach out to the Xfinity customer service phone number for order statuses, equipment installation appointments, or any other queries. All these steps don’t require the customer to get out of the comfort of their home since they are able to carry out these activities online.
However, while technology has been able to meet most of the customers’ demand to shop for products and services at his ease, brands need to make sure that they are living up to par with these demands.
Proactive Approach: Consider this situation: you have a magazine brand and your customers have subscribed via their credit card information for the recurring subscription. More often than not, customers don’t pay attention when their card is about to expire, which can lapse their accounts. To save this frustration in the future, your brand shouldn’t let this happen and send their subscribers a reminder before the expiration date.
This kind of approach leaves an impression on your customers that your brand is working towards great customer service, and that also sets you apart from your competitors.
Response Speed: 77% of the customers expect that 6 hours is the minimum turnaround response time for email. This means that the response time for in-app chats and phone calls is even faster. Your customer support reps might get held up in prior conversations, and to compensate for that, your business uses chatbots.
With the help of chatbots and automation, customers will be able to get some answers to their queries, when at the same time, no human support agent is available to help out. Chatbots can deal with less complicated FAQs such as order status, product information, delivery time, installation, etc. But if the queries get too complex, the conversation can be taken over by a human customer support agent.
Interactive Learning Resources: Gone are the days when customers would read long instruction manuals to learn about how a product works. When getting started with a new product customers expect a demo or visual walk-through. Walk-through guides and videos are in high demand now to answer the customers’ most common questions about how products work.
Adding interactive learning resources will show your customers how to use the product and also make the most of these products quickly. Furthermore, your customer rep should be ready to provide a quick screen share or arrange video calls for customers when needed.
Human Interaction: While automation is a good idea that can be used efficiently and consistently to respond to customers’ queries, it shouldn’t completely replace human interaction. There might be more complicated queries that cannot be solved by a bot, and the human agent might need to take over. Also, customers appreciate having a human touch in their interaction with the brand, which they cannot get with chatbots.
This approach can help customers put a face to the company, and better yet, make it easier for customers to understand and learn about the whole process. Having a successful human interaction makes them loyal to your brand in the long-term process.
Social Media: Apart from promoting and marketing your products or services, social media can also be used for communicating with your customers. Your brand might find that a handful of customers are reaching out to them via Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Rather than being put on hold, conversations on social media feel like they are more user-centered.
Brands should respond to their customers in a timely fashion. Brands shouldn’t ignore negative comments on social media, but rather deal with them in a positive manner keeping their reputation in mind.
Final Thoughts
Brands should be proactive in their provision of customer service. Use their social media profile to engage and build relationships with their customers. Also, create videos for easy self-help. Implementing the above-mentioned strategies will send your brand up for success.
