Why Multi Channel Customer Service is so Important

0
142

Share on LinkedIn

If you read a lot about customer service, you probably come across the buzz about multi channel customer support. But, without a good point of reference to start from, you may be unsure what exactly this is. And even so, you may wonder why there’s so much emphasis on it, and why people are so adamant on taking advantage of this.

Well, that’s understandable; because while this concept isn’t brand new, the terminology seems to have popped up out of the blue. In a nutshell, multi channel support is the use of more than one channel for handling support.

If you have a call center and you also have a help desk, a customer aid forum, or another method of customer support – then you are using multi channel support. But, you’re probably not using these channels to their fullest potential.

It’s hard to keep up with all the new applications and services that become available. especially in a digital age like this. Sometimes, these new applications offer more functions than we are even aware of.

The most obvious – and trending – way to utilize multi channel customer service is with social networks; they provide proactive and passive customer service. Twitter is a great channel for this, allowing for quick, short responses. Facebook, and LinkedIn are also great. These social channels are ubiquitous in daily life so users will not find them to be an interruption or an imposition.

Multi Channel support has a far greater goal than providing help, that being self help; i.e. self service. Onboard software like WalkMe can integrated into websites to monitor user activity. It can them guide users through tasks, in real time. If a mistake is made WalkMe works with the user to correct it.

WalkMe eliminates the need for agents to spend their time guiding customers, and empowers the customers to confidently handle problems on their own. They will see this as an extreme convenience, and will be impressed by the use of modern customer service techniques.

This self service concept saves a lot of money for your company. Along with the satisfaction of self-reliance that WalkMe instills in your customers, it makes interacting with customer service far less of a pain for everyone. It also reduces overhead costs.

Along with using other available channels such as help desks, crowd sourced community forums and dynamic FAQs (also good for integration with onboard and self service), there are call centers.

Call centers are the standard, most common channel for customer service; and they are a big problem. They are chronically understaffed, the bottleneck on them is immense, and the hold times are unacceptable. Going multi channel is the best way to redirect the traffic into other directions. This allows for a reduction of workload and wait time in the call center. When serious issues they can be dealt with more quickly.

Multi channel customer service is not just a good idea, it’s mandatory for any company who plans to succeed in the future. I talked about a few ways you can incorporate and enhance your current customer service channels. Let me know what you think!

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Stefanie Amini
Stefanie Amini is the Marketing Director and Specialist in Customer Success at WalkMe, the world's first interactive online guidance system. She is chief writer and editor of I Want It Now (http://ow.ly/gOU3a), a blog for Customer Service Experts. Follow her @StefWalkMe.

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Please use comments to add value to the discussion. Maximum one link to an educational blog post or article. We will NOT PUBLISH brief comments like "good post," comments that mainly promote links, or comments with links to companies, products, or services.

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here