High competition and growing customer expectations have put customer experience (CX) at the top of a list of priorities for many companies. It is essential to provide great, personalized customer service across numerous channels and be ready to help 24/7. In order to give the greatest possible customer experience in 2023, brands should take cues from the most popular customer service trends and adopt them for their workflow and business operations.
Omnichannel support
Gone are the days when it was normal for a company to be contacted by customers only via phone or fax. Customers now expect to be able to communicate with businesses over many channels, including phone, email, live chat, SMS, and social media. Also, when it comes to online shopping, customers tend to switch between desktop and mobile devices, as well as between several communication channels. By going omnichannel, companies can create a seamless customer experience and enhance customer satisfaction.
The best tool here comes in the form of an omnichannel messaging platform that consolidates customer information and messaging across different channels, allowing customer care personnel to handle customer conversations across numerous channels in a single interface.
Value alignment
Today, it is important for customers to interact with brands that share their values, such as transparency and honesty. Also, studies show that customers prefer to purchase from brands that put social responsibility, diversity, and inclusion first. Companies should evaluate customer data to have a better understanding of their consumers and the issues that are most important to them. This will assist businesses in providing better customer service, which will lead to higher consumer satisfaction.
Chatbots and automation
Automation solutions, which are affordable and may assist in decreasing day-to-day operational expenses, are an excellent way to make customer support more cost-effective. For example, chatbots and conversational AI technologies can answer commonly asked inquiries and help clients with online purchases without any human involvement. Also, the categorization of incoming inquiries according to keywords and automatic distribution of them among agents according to their workload should not be overlooked as well.
Shorter response time
About half of the customers expect businesses to respond in less than four hours. Consider this, except for a minor share of categories of products and services, almost any offer can be countered by competitors. And in our digital age, all of the competitors are right in the client’s palm of hand — to contact them, there is no need to go anywhere. This makes response speed one of the key characteristics of customer service quality. Businesses should aim at keeping it well below average and utilize various tools, such as omnichannel messaging platforms and tagging of tickets for instant notifications and fast routing.
Summing things up, there’s never been more demanding and testing time for customer service professionals. Digital technologies increase client expectations but they also provide tools to improve customer service. Those who can put these tools to good use in the best way possible and deliver the highest customer satisfaction significantly increase their chances of becoming leaders in their niche or industry.