How many times have you called customer service and been transferred several times, and had to repeat your problem every time?
Or, they didn’t fix your problem, so next time you call or go into a store, no one knows what you experienced before and you have to start over?
We’ve all had experiences like this before. Unfortunately, this is what customers expect from most brands.
Now, picture this alternate customer service scenario:
- You call up any support rep, and they have your history in front of them.
- You can start talking where you left off with the last person, and this is the same whether you go to a store or call in.
- And not only that, they know the exact status of a part shipment or your support ticket, in addition to any relevant non-support history.
In this scenario, you are getting great service. Why? Because everyone has the information they need.
The companies that have great support sync their information about each customer across teams. The key, in short, is connectivity.
Let’s explore this crucial aspect of customer service. Here are two ways you can improve your customer experience with connectivity.
Create Multiple Channels to Contact You.
Times are a changin’. Nowadays, there are many channels to reach out to a brand, like text chat, email, and phone.
Gone are the days where you could get away with providing phone chat only. According to Dimension Data, only 29% of millennials prefer phone support, while 42% of them prefer electronic messaging and 36% prefer social media.
Experiment with different channels to find out where customers like to contact you.
We recommend that you consider social media as a legitimate channel for customer support. Many customers will broadcast their problems publicly. When managed well, this is a blessing.
Determine if a pattern of communication exists, and allocate resources accordingly. For example, California-based Chubbies ensures support at 8 AM EST so their office warriors on the East Coast can call before work.
The Challenge: Managing Complexity
With these multiple touchpoints comes complexity. Problems of double-entries and partially updated CRM files becomes a real problem.
The Solution: Integrate Your Channels
Connecting these touchpoints with a tool like Zendesk can be a boon to your efficiency because it manages all your communication channels in one place.
Likewise, earn major credibility through smart use of bots. For example, set up an email alert for mentions on social media. Cutting down your reply time on social media lets your customers know you are forward-thinking and responsive.
[Free Whitepaper] Learn more with our free ebook, Supercharging Your Customer Service.
Your Customer Should State Their Problem Only Once.
The amount of effort a customer must put in can make or break a customer experience.
But if your customer has to repeat her issue every time she calls, things start to look like more trouble than they’re worth. Likewise, if the customer is bounced around to different departments, this only increases their frustration.
So clearly, eliminating redundancy is the key to a stress-free experience.
The Challenge: Your Teams Use Different Tools
You understand the need to eliminate duplication, but everyone is using different tools. For your part, all you can access is your customer support app.
Out there, perhaps there is an open ticket with the engineering team whose status you can’t see. Or, perhaps there is already a data-rich customer record in the sales team’s CRM, but you can’t access it.
The Solution: Automate Sharing of Data in a Central CRM
The best way to eliminate redundancy is maintaining a central CRM. All teams should have the ability to contribute to this central record. Any party should have the power to see a full view of the customer.
Integrate your apps to ensure all parties can update the CRM with their respective tools. For example, support reps should see:
- when tickets are open and closed with engineering resources (Jira, Basecamp)
- when billing details are updated (Stripe, QuickBooks, Xero).
- a history of the customer’s past purchases & interactions (Salesforce)
Having this information at their fingertips will lead to happy customers and quicker resolution times.
[Free Download] Want to learn more about connectivity in customer service? Download our free whitepaper.
