The adage "The customer is always right" is probably more relevant now than ever. Especially when most businesses are going digital, meeting customer expectations and encouraging their participation is crucial.
If you own a business, you surely realize that understanding consumer expectations is pivotal to brand loyalty. Exceeding customer expectations enhances their buying chances, which in turn affects the company's long-term revenue.
Due to the growing number of touchpoints, customer satisfaction has become a challenge. Customers, particularly the B2B customers, are fickle as ever. For instance, the manner in which your customers want their complaints resolved has changed today. Customers expect companies to respond swiftly to their issues and give prompt solutions. They look forward to speaking with knowledgeable agents and visiting websites with AI-powered self-servicing capabilities.
Thus, businesses need to develop an efficacious strategy to keep their customers happy. Adapting to these rapidly changing consumer expectations is the only way your business will deliver cutting-edge customer experience. Hence, if you want your customer support to be a key differentiator from the rest, you will need to go the extra mile to understand constantly evolving consumer sentiment and needs.
Research suggests that 92% of consumers will change companies after three (or fewer) unfavorable experiences. Gone are the days when being reachable only meant having a toll-free number with agents who are somewhat knowledgeable. Today, the definition of accessibility has a whole new meaning. It means serving your customers wherever they want, whenever they want. It means investing in tools that allow you to fulfill omnichannel customer expectations and offer omnichannel consumer support.
Customers need access to information on critical issues. Communicating with them on product updates, discounts, and launches is important.
Cultivating personalized relationships with customers can significantly increase the likelihood of exceeding their expectations, making them advocates of the brand.
The response times of service channels should be reasonably low. Make technology your trusted ally. Address customer issues in real time.
Customers expect conversations with support representatives to be seamless. Solutions should be provided in real-time, even if the conversation is taking place across different channels.
It's essential to ensure agents have detailed product knowledge and resources to deliver swift customer support.
Customers don’t want to go through long-waiting times to get their problems fixed or questions answered.
Companies must let consumers set expectations. Meet SLAs like a pro with timely reminders and industry-specific escalations. Make your customers feel valued at all times.
First contact resolution of customer issues is one of the most important aspects of a good customer service experience.
Agents must identify recurring customer issues and address them through automated sequences or canned responses.
Businesses need to have data transparency, as well as provide concrete evidence that customer data is safe.
Creating a successful service strategy requires understanding your client's needs and anticipating their demands. If you're losing business to an increasingly crowded marketspace, understanding what your clients want and acting on it can set you apart from your competitors.
Customer experience management (CEM), as characterized by Gartner is the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions. CEM means not only meeting but also exceeding consumer expectations. Doing so will eventually lead to greater customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.
Moreover, the standardized, one-size-fits-all customer support encounters are unappealing and outdated. They no longer please the modern consumer. Today, a consumer wants to be more than a ticket number or a request ID. They want to be individualized.
Your agents should talk to customers like they know who they are. Especially given that customers purposefully divulge a plethora of personal information. Companies need to actively adopt a data-driven culture, everything from knowing their contact information to buying choices and interaction logs.
To do this, they can make use of tools like in-built Freshdesk Analytics. This feature is enabled with customized dashboards and handcrafted reports. It also gives you access to advanced statistical metrics like AHT (Average handling time), NPS (Net promoter scores), and resolution rates.
Freshdesk Analytics can be leveraged to deliver unique and personalized customer experiences across all interactions, as there is no justification for a disconnect between brands and customers in a connected, data-driven society.
Whether they are a developer devising new features or a marketing team coming up with new campaigns, encourage your employees to keep your consumers at the center of every decision. Additionally, gathering consumer feedback is the best approach to determine whether your actions and efforts to meet customer expectations are successful.
This can be achieved by the Customer Satisfaction Survey, a built-in functionality of Freshdesk. With each support ticket, Freshdesk's CSAT survey feature may be utilized to gauge customer satisfaction and helpdesk effectiveness. It determines how your customers feel about your service and support after an agent-customer interaction. Along with providing exceptional customer service, Freshdesk's CSAT survey feature also serves as a good indicator for product teams to focus on customer needs and develop useful features.
"Millennials are willing to spend the most - 21% more for excellent customer care.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has raised the bar for CX, and this shift in expectations does not appear to be going down anytime soon. The way companies respond to them could shake up the market, paving the way for fresh market leaders. Hence, businesses should utilize robust data-driven analytics solutions. These tools will help them deliver consumer expectations and set an industry standard for years to come.
Every positive customer experience adds value to your company's products and services. Remember, there is no better salesman than a happy customer. Excelling at customer service is truly the key to driving more business revenue.
So, which customer support practices will you be implementing for seamless CX? Let B-TRNSFRMD, a trusted omnichannel CX solutions company know, and we can help you get started!
So, which customer support practices will you be implementing for seamless CX? Let B-TRNSFRMD, a trusted omnichannel CX solutions company know, and we can help you get started!
