What is Customer Case Management And Why do You Need it in Your CX Process

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Customers are, as we all know, the foundation of a strong business.

Building customer loyalty is (or should be) at the heart of everything a business does. Did you know that increasing your retention rates by just 5% can boost profits by 25%?


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But how does customer case management fit into all this? How does it feature in a business’s CX process? What even is customer case management?

What Is Customer Case Management?

At its core, customer case management is all about making sure your team is fully up to speed on the best way to deal with any and all customer queries and complaints.

This includes all forms of customer service – from emails and telephone calls, to live chats and customer surveys. It also encompasses all areas of the department, such as the service counter, helplines, and case management software.

What is a Case Management System?

A case management system consists of a central location where all relevant data can be stored. It allows you to track cases from beginning to end, as well as refer to previous cases as needed.

Having a case management system in place means that you can manage requests over a large variety of channels, without losing track of where you’re up to. For instance, if a customer phones in with a question and then needs to email documentation to you, it will all be recorded under the same ‘case’ within the system. That way, your agents don’t need to manually keep track of everything relevant.

Customer Case Management Examples

It’s often easier to explain what customer case management is by providing scenarios, rather than talking around the topic. Below are some examples of situations that you or your employees may find yourselves handling::

General pricing questions, especially if you provide quotes on demand.
Request for demos or testimonials.
Refund or exchange requests
Questions regarding a specific feature of a product
Issues applying discount codes or navigating a website

Customers can have a huge range of queries, complaints, and support needs. It’s important, therefore, to provide your staff with the broadest possible training, to ensure that they will be able to answer any questions that customers may have – or at least to point them to someone who can.

What Makes Good Customer Case Management?

Training

Here are a few of the areas you can train your staff in to ensure great case management practice:

Products/services you sell
How customer support is provided
How you want your brand to be represented
Any existing case management software or any new softwares you may be implementing in the near future.
Who to ask for support should they be unsure in any of the aforementioned areas.

It’s crucial to train your employees in this way from the very beginning of their time with your company. While large enterprises may have dedicated internal training courses, SME HR departments could outsource this training if needed.

Standard Processes

Consistency is key to good case management. There should be clearly defined processes for everything, in order to ensure the customer’s case is handled smoothly no matter who is in charge of it. These processes should be designed with your agents, and take into account their actual experiences. They should cover:

Initial responses
How to record data in the case management system
How to transfer to another agent if needed
Where to find appropriate answers

Benefits of Good Customer Case Management

There are a huge amount of benefits to a stringent customer case management policy. Here are just a few.

Streamlined Business Processes

Making sure that your business’s inner workings are the most efficient they can be is one of the key components of business process management, and customer case management is certainly no exception.

Good customer case management makes things easier on both your customers and your staff. If you have a streamlined process in place, the right support can be provided by the right people, the amount of time it takes to manage a case can be reduced, and cases can be referred back to in the future.

Depending on the tool your business uses, you may be able to manage customer cases using livechat or even chatbots, which can further streamline your case management process. This way, the easy queries can be answered by bots, and the more complex cases that need human intervention can be answered by your reps, saving everyone time and effort.

Higher Customer Satisfaction

Many businesses suffer from high customer churn. This is often brought on by poor customer service.


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Having a good case management strategy cuts this factor down enormously. By making sure that you’re getting your customers where they need to go, you’ll be keeping their satisfaction high and encourage them to come back to you again and again.

Which leads us on to our next point…

Increased Company Reputation

This is probably the most tangible benefit to good customer case management.

After all, as we’ve said – businesses are nothing without their customers. And if your company can handle customer cases effectively and efficiently, word is sure to spread.

You can try all sorts of fancy SEO tricks, from guest posting to a good old-fashioned white hat link, but what counts at the end of the day are customer reviews. That’s what people will search up when researching your company – what other people are saying about it.


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If you make sure that your customer case management policy is top-notch, you’ll see the rise in customer satisfaction and company reputation almost straight away. No more complaining about missed communications, or customers unable to get help. Instead, you’ll get satisfied customers happy to sing your praises.

Conclusion

As you can see, having excellent case management should be a core part of any CX process. It helps keep your customers happy, as well as making your customer support team’s lives easier. So, if you’re still managing multiple channels, and treating each new interaction individually – don’t. Instead, why not give case management a try, and see what it can do for you.

Alister Esam
I help businesses perform at their best using my expertise in business process management and strategic planning.

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