“Your product is only as good as your service”
You often hear people talking about their service experiences. They might have had good, mediocre, bad or in the best case outstanding service experiences. But what makes customer service great and where should you start to map your customer’s journey? First you have to realize that people have moved from single — channel service into an omni-channel service. Do you know what this means to your business and do you know what your customers are talking about you on the internet?
Question: Are you keeping up the pace with your customers?
Nowadays it is not even enough if you keep the same pace… you need to be one step ahead. To be successful in getting a head start you need to focus on four topics:
1 . Know Your Customers, no matter where they are and how they contact: Customers do not tend to like it if they are forced to visit multiple sites before their problems are solved. For example if a customer starts with live chat and after that calls people in customer care, customer care should already now the topics discussed earlier. You should be able to track your customers’ needs no matter where and how they contact you.
2. One stop for customer information: Use your contact center as a storage for complaints, comments and product/service feedback. This collection point should be accessible for everyone inside the organization who are involved with the customer journey.
3. Use customer preferred channels: Customers prefer different channels and service agents should always ask how customers wish to be contacted. This information helps marketing department tailor the best messages for different channels.
4. Mobile customer service? Mobile options are here now and they are here to stay. Mobile platforms keep customers always connected with the service team even there wouldn’t be anyone physically present to answer the customer’s questions. So-called Self-service has grown its popularity as an option for the customers. Sharing frequently ask questions in the communities and having “Hero”-customers reply to questions are examples of self-service
Identify gaps in your customer journey no matter if you are working with B2B- or B2C -segments. CMO Digital Forum listed three good points where you can start working with:
- gaps between devices, when a user moves from one device to another;
- gaps between departments, where the user might get frustrated.
- gaps between channels (for example, where the experience of going from social media to the website could be better).
What do you think if your Customer Service would looked like this?
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