Once upon a time, before the era of the internet, customer service was limited to either making a call, writing a letter, or a visit to the customer service desk.
How much the internet has changed the way customers and companies interact with one another. It’s not a surprising phenomenon today to expect the vast majority of customer service interaction to happen in an online environment.
Customers today, are able to voice their approval or disapproval over numerous channels such as social media, can get answers online and use web self-service technologies. Access to the virtual world of customer service is available at the click of a button. Therefore multiple methods of communication are critical to providing consistent customer support in any business.
Many businesses however have been slow in their online customer service response, fearful of the myths surrounding this channel. At Synthetix, we answer over 10 m questions a year through our web self-service technologies and have experienced first-hand, the positive impact it has had on customer service delivery.
Hearing loss featured much in this week’s national news. Recent feedback has brought to our attention the benefit of online chat to people who suffer with hearing impairments. Live Chat enabled them to voice their requirements clearly, with confidence and ease in real time, interacting with a real person. And it’s not just Live Chat that has made a huge difference to the hard-of-hearing communities. Online forms with knowledge-base integration has turned prospective customers into regulars.
With online service playing such a crucial part in the successful delivery of customer service, one of the biggest challenges facing companies is figuring out which of the multitude of channels needed to service today’s customer they have to implement and how to manage these channels in an economically palatable way without any disruption to existing customer care practices.
For insight into the best practices to do so and further evolve customer service in the cloud, why not download our whitepaper.
Our white paper will help you to:
- Identify the key questions to ask a vendor
- Understand the implications of ‘hidden costs’
- Evaluate the criteria important to your organisation
