With 88% of all organizations delivering a multi-channel service experience, the differentiating factor will now be in the quality of those interactions. How can customer service professionals step up their game? See SAP's Hansen Lieu's presentation from a recent CRM Magazine webcast.
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Fundamentally, a number of key things have changed the world of customer service. We all know this from our own personal and professional lives, because everyone of us interacts with customer service organizations day-in and day-out.
First of all, we’re expecting great choice in how to interact with customer service. A study shows that more than half of all U.S. firms offer at least 6 interaction channels for customer service.
Also, we’ve never been more willing to jump ship: Another study revealed that 89% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company after experiencing poor customer service.
Lastly, customers have become much more educated and empowered: 73% of firms trust recommendations from friends and family, while only 19% trust direct mail
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This battle for customer experience has, to some degree, perpetuated itself by empowering the customer. As they have better experiences, they expect better experiences. And, given that they have the money, today’s customers find themselves in a buyer’s market and set their expectations accordingly. They expect:
The companies they interact with to take proactive measures to ensure a great experience
Everything to be personalized, and any communication to cater to their preferences while respecting their privacy
The service agents they interact with to anticipate their needs and be ahead in terms of understanding and solving their problems
That the companies they do business with will support the communication channels that they prefer
[Talk track:]
To expand on the last point about channels, multi-channel customer service has become commodity. The customer expects you to be on the social channels that they are, and web chat, an online support portal, and traditional channels like email and phone are all taken for granted. The point here is that it’s not good enough to support the channel – it’s about maintaining a consistent high quality interaction across every channel the customer chooses.
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So, what’s the solution? With high customer expectations and limited resources, how do you give a customer more than they are expecting to get?
Meet customer preferences (interaction channels, reactive vs. proactive service)
Know customer beyond service (i.e. sales interactions, marketing interactions, etc)
Ensure seamless handover from marketing to sales to service
Provide insight from other enterprise systems (e.g. billing, inventory, supply chain)
Meet customer preferences (interaction channels, reactive vs. proactive service)
Know customer beyond service (i.e. sales interactions, marketing interactions, etc)
[Talk track:]
Customers expect to receive efficient, effortless, personalized service from companies that they interact with.
Therefore service agents need:
access to a customer’s profile, current situation, and prior purchase and interaction history
access to knowledge management, delivered in a proactive way, across communication channels and touch points, and context-sensitive to the customer’s persona and the issue at hand.
ability to collaborate in context with subject matter experts across the enterprise to increase first-contact resolution rates.