Things you can do in customer service to build amazing customer experiences.
Being held in eight countries, “Zendesk Presents” returned to Brazil to discuss the future of customer experience. The event is the largest ever held by the company in Brazil, with more than 1,500 participants, and addressed the main trends in the sector, such as the new consumer profile, new technologies that are transforming the relationship between companies and clients, the so-called Empathy Economy, as well as debating the maturity of the national market.
Over the last ten years, customer experience has been a major focus of the business strategy. Customize, streamline, engage and innovate. Make it happen. Wow the customer. Trust your agents. Be proactive!
However…
Less than one in five companies are delivering good to great CX, although 84% aspire to be CX leaders.
Why such a poor showing? More than half of CX pros said that their organization’s culture impedes their success; 45% cited organizational structure, 41% referenced organizational processes, and 38% noted peer support and alignment as major challenges to success.
There were many important topics and strategies covered, and they all showed us how to create wonderful Customer Experiences, but digging deeper I realized that what really made my heart skip a beat was…
Corporate Social Responsibility
Vice President of Public Policy and Social Impact at Zendesk, Tiffany Apczynski talked about the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the workplace. Though I never really paid attention to it, CSR is not a new concept.
It is a significant business-culture change that brings in empathy and allows us to connect with humans as humans, which can lead to more proactive, patient, and emotionally intelligent agents.
Basically, customer service is the front line for building trust with customers, and CSR is how today’s customers build trust in an organization.
Fixed Mindset VS Growth Mindset
People with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence is inborn and unchangeable. By contrast, people with a growth mindset understand that intelligence (and success) is flexible and can be developed. I can almost hear you asking yourself: what does this have to do with customer experience?
Well, someone with a fixed mindset sees situations as static. They believe they must work with what they have. Tame the tickets! Meet the targets! High-performance! Results? Bad customer experience, agents reaching a state of emotional exhaustion and burnout, and ticket volume that won’t decrease.
Someone with a growth mindset sees situations as changeable. They believe they can always find a better way by engaging proactively! They take the opportunity to build stronger relationships! Results? Customer retention improvement, service level metrics improvement(CSAT included), operating costs reduction, revenue growth, among others.
Customer Effort:
The point being, people value an effortless experience. You shouldn’t make your clients feel like they are putting in more than they are getting out from an experience.
Emotional Connection:
You build brand loyalty by giving your customers the feeling that they are important to you. Though it may take more effort to obtain and maintain a personal connection with customers, the bottom-line benefits are well worth it. Prioritize mutual trust and respect to create genuine connections — and focus on the experience, not the transaction.
Customer Success:
Customer Success isn’t just a new word for “Support”. Think of customer success as being the next layer on top of a successful customer support team. Unsuccessful customer service drives customers away and affects revenue. Simply by focusing on customer service and the speed of response, companies are able to turn a problem into a positive feedback.
Culture
There’s no point in investing in better content, better software, and better processes if none of it is aligned with your team. If your employee is not satisfied with the internal experience within the company, they will not deliver it to the client. It is, therefore, necessary to create a customer-centric culture.
There is an old proverb about a shoemaker who was busy making shoes for his customers. However, he was so busy keeping them happy that his wife and children went shoeless. The moral of the story is that we should not neglect ourselves or those around us (our families or peers) while we care for others.
Customer Experience Strategy
The effect of an efficient Customer Experience Strategy reflects positively on your employees’ daily lives. Companies that provide poor service often suffer from complaints and hostile approaches. The better the company treats its customers, the better it will treat its employees.
Companies with effective Customer Experience Strategies also get more customers and more money. More customers because the service, once excellent, makes the consumer a spontaneous promoter of the brand. More money as more customers increase business revenue and enable greater scalability in pricing.
At the end of the day there’s always something you can do in Customer Service to increase Customer Success and build amazing Customer Experiences, why don’t you share your findings with us?
