Remote operations
Marc Prempain
15 April 2024
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A positive customer experience (CX) is a crucial part of running a business, one that can ensure a successful and steady expansion of your company for a long time. What CX trends and practices should your business implement to take the customer service experience to another level?
The customer service experience is one of the most important aspects of customer feedback and further business growth. Think about it – out of two companies offering the same product or service, you are probably more likely to recommend the one which provided you with excellent customer support and made your customer journey pleasurable. You’re not the only one – as many as 83% of buyers would recommend a brand where the customer service representatives were helpful and provided a quick and effective response to their queries. What’s more, 86% of customers are even willing to pay more for a guarantee of better customer service.
With this in mind, leading a good customer service strategy is not enough anymore. The digitalization of the market made it far easier to reach more customers all over the world, and not just physically where you conduct business. On the other hand, it also increased the competition – not only with stores operating around yours but also many other businesses offering similar services digitally around the world, regardless of location. Customers’ expectations towards a positive experience have thus become more demanding with every coming year, with 54% having higher expectations of customer service provided than they had just a year ago.
It has been hence proven that when companies focus on providing an excellent customer service experience, they see a faster and steadier expansion. Many benefits follow, so the effort is worth it. Good customer experience and a strong strategy promote customer happiness, encourage brand advocacy, and strengthen customer retention and loyal customer base expansion. What’s more, research has shown an 80% increase in overall revenue when businesses focus on customer experience.
Considered the future of customer service by many, Artificial intelligence has been revolutionizing the way customers now value their customer service experience. With more than 60% of business now competing solely on the grounds of customer service experience, CX preferences and trends change rapidly. The speed and precision of AI technologies is the only way to provide the essential deep insight into the market of customer experience trends. How can then Artificial intelligence be used to improve your customer service and enhance customer experience?
AI can automate the simple, mundane tasks your customer service agents would otherwise spend time on every day thanks to its Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution. RPA has been increasingly implemented in both call and contact centers to automate repetitive tasks such as post-call data entry and organization. Automation technology also improves the efficiency and accuracy of tasks performed, freeing support agents to put their effort and time into more challenging work, polishing their customer service skills, and boosting their productivity.
AI-driven knowledge management systems make it easier for employees to access any data from previous interactions with customers and records of their customer service experience levels you would require at a given moment. With such innovative tools, your workforce can access both the past call information and the latest procedural information in no time. AI knowledge management is also a great tool to use for building employee training material or creating a simple, straight-forward customer self-service knowledge base.
Well-thought-through customer service interactions are crucial to improving your company’s customer service experience and boosting customer satisfaction. Artificial intelligence technologies can make customer service experience more individual and personalized due to their abilities to thoroughly analyze and categorize customer data as they obtain it. For example, AI software use behavioral profile pairing to match callers with support agents best adapted to their cognitive and emotional needs – as seen through ViiBE’s expertise call routing. With this solution, a customer who has trouble understanding technical details will be paired with a support agent who can explain things simply and efficiently, whereas the most qualified and patient customer service representative will handle customers who can easily get upset.
AI technologies can improve CX by making it easier for a customer to reach the company’s customer service centers in case of an issue at any time of the day. AI-enabled contact centers can be thus operated through various online platforms, such as the brand’s social media accounts, a live chat feature, or online messengers. These AI tools enable a natural-sounding text conversation and can customize interactions with customers for each use case. This virtual assistance solution allows for a rapid first call resolution and effective response, no matter the time of the day and the place where the customer is based. Consequently, human agents are thus able to focus on more complex situations.
No matter how much effort you put into making your customer service as efficient and successful as possible, mistakes can happen, and some customers can still have bad experiences from time to time. After all, business fluctuates constantly, different customers expect different things, and you just can’t predict everything. This is where service recovery comes in.
Sometimes called customer service recovery, service recovery is the process of problem-solving to regain customer satisfaction and shape your customer service experience strategy accordingly. Unhappy customers are a true challenge for any company – if your customers feel unsatisfied, they are much more willing to spread negative feedback and are unlikely to come back and use your services again. With service recovery, however, you can turn disappointed customers into happy ones once again. This can boost business growth in the long run, as a 10% increase in customer retention has been found to lead to a 30% increase in the company’s value.
How do businesses implement good service recovery frameworks for improved customer service experience? They identify the issue that caused dissatisfaction in the first place. They show empathy to the customer by apologizing for the problem, make them feel heard and valued, and try to find a solution that is satisfactory for both them and the customer.
Likewise, they offer help in guiding customers through the problem resolution processes, so they can be autonomous in the future and promote the company’s customer self-service. After the issue is resolved, they follow up with the customer to ensure their satisfaction with the solution and check their new customer service experience levels. Lastly, they update their processes to avoid similar problems in the future and flag it in their databases to react quickly if it does reoccur.
Scoring high levels of customer service experience is key to long-term success. A customer satisfied with your company’s customer service handling improves your chances of gaining a loyal customer who will promote your services to others. This will also boost your revenue and overall performance – a great, natural marketing strategy in itself. If you struggle with poor customer service, try improving it by implementing AI technology and ViiBE’s visual assistance features, as well as reviewing your service recovery strategy.
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