Organizations can no longer safely rely on offering only basic customer support efforts, as customer expectations and business competition continue to push the envelope. We’re in a new age of increasingly customer-centric business practices. More than ever, satisfaction with customer support can be directly tied to business success or failure. In fact, customer service leaders outperformed the market average by 35 points, whereas companies with poor service records underperformed by 45 points. It is no longer an option, or “added perk†to provide good customer service–it’s do or die. So what “beyond basic†trends should you expect to see?
Mobile “Omni-Channel†Support
Mobile support is a multi-faceted system that requires extensive attention in the customer support arena. Over 62% of adults in the US own a smartphone, and these users expect to access customer support via SMS, video and web chat, voice, and email. The smartphone is a part of the omni-channel customer support vehicle, and is its own multi-channel system in itself.
With mobile, it is important to give customers what they want (and what they don’t know that they even want yet). If it is difficult to access your website, make a call, or chat with your organization, chances are increasing that your customers will eventually go elsewhere. Make it easy for your customers to interact with you.
Business-to-Business (B2B) companies should take a lesson from the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) world of customer support. Large banks like Wells Fargo have made it easier to access account information and make mobile payments over their mobile app and easy to use mobile site. The Starbucks mobile app is another good example of omni-channel support–making it easy for customers to interact with the company on a customer service level.
Mobile is the future, and the future is here. Make your organization relevant with quality omni-channel support.
Self-Service
Customers like to help themselves–easily discoverable solutions like those offered in the Self Service Center make for a great customer experience. They key, of course, is keeping your self-help database full of relevant information. Many larger companies are automating their “self help†customer service with language recognition software that can glean contextually relevant answers from large databases. Even if your self-service capabilities aren’t quite at that level of sophistication, giving your customers any level of self-help support is the bare minimum needed to maintain customer satisfaction.
Humanity
Paradoxical as it seems, especially since customer support is trending towards automation, but emphasis on human interaction is key. The historical problem with human interaction is that human customer support interaction is, well¾less than human. For basic information or scripted support, an automated system is probably superior¾especially compared seemingly joyless, by-the-book humans running the support network. Humanity should be at the core of people-driven support, where empathy, flexibility, and understanding make every customer support agent a brand ambassador.
Social media
Customers now expect prompt responses on social media channels. Although typically a marketing representative’s job, customer support efforts should extend across an entire organization.
PhaseWare’s reporting tools make it easy to keep up with up and coming trends, while tracking over 80 important metrics that can make a huge difference in your customer support performance. Stay ahead of the pack by adapting to customer needs and tracking your efficiency at meeting them.
Tracker is an industry-leading customer support system that always keeps their customers at the forefront of support trends. Request a demo today!
