Your business needs to invest in your customers’ satisfaction to outpace your competitors. Compared to brands with inferior customer service, those that create superior customer experiences bring in 5.7 times more revenue.
As technologies develop, companies find new ways to streamline their customer service operations and increase their effectiveness. If you want to keep up, your business will also need to invest in these technologies.
1. Face-to-Face Video Communication
Face-to-face communication is essential for effectively building rapport with your customers. Some companies have started using video voicemail and conference calls to talk to customers whenever possible. If you haven’t already, you can start using it yourself.
Eye contact and being able to see facial expressions facilitate openness, helping you build trust with customers that wouldn’t be possible with just written communication. You will find that your interactions with customers will be far more productive, and you’ll boost your conversion rate.
2. Real-Time Messaging
You can’t always communicate with customers via video and that’s why companies are also improving upon their written communication avenues with real-time messaging. It provides customers with a more authentic, 1-on-1 service experience when video communication is impractical.
It’s not completely replacing emails, though, and it likely won’t any time soon. Companies are still using email to share important documents and make announcements, but real-time messaging is more effective for discussions and addressing issues.
3. Omnichannel Services
Omnichannel commerce provides customers with a seamless experience by connecting all your retail platforms, including mobile, desktop, and brick-and-mortar stores. This gives customers increased accessibility and convenience, allowing your service team to respond to their concerns regardless of where they’re engaging with your business.
4. Remote Work
More cloud-based tools are being developed to help customer service representatives work remotely. Remote work setups let businesses save on office space and equipment costs. Employees also benefit from a better work-life balance, less commute stress and expenses, and better sleep. However, it’s unlikely that we’ll abandon offices completely.
Research suggests that moving to permanent work-from-home setups would negatively impact productivity as workers would get fewer opportunities for learning and relationship building. It’s more likely that companies will adopt a hybrid model where workers work some days at home and some days at the office, giving them increased workplace flexibility.
5. Personalized Customer Service Training
Customer service training usually takes a general approach that works well enough for multiple customer service representatives. However, training may become more personalized through sentiment analysis tools.
A sentiment analysis tool is software used to accurately analyze text conversations and feedback, allowing you to monitor brand and product sentiment. It not only helps representatives better understand customers, but it can also help businesses evaluate their representatives’ strengths and weaknesses.
Businesses will be able to provide representatives with personalized training, making them more effective communicators. And with better representatives comes better customer satisfaction and more sales.
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