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| Turn unhappy customers into happy ones |
With mobile phones taking over our lives
and conversational interfaces becoming ubiquitous there is certainly a new level
of demand arriving at customer service centers. Customers do not accept a
mediocre service experience anymore. With their smartphones they have the means
to get to customer service with nearly no delay and they are certainly willing
to use it.
And they do it.
In this situation customers are often
already feeling some frustration or disappointment because they couldn’t
achieve what they wanted to achieve in the first instance. They already had
their taste of a suboptimal customer experience.
Frustration, disappointment – customers’
negative emotions towards a brand have a corresponding negative impact on the
business. Customers just might go buy somewhere else. After all, in times of
smartphones this has become simpler than ever.
The support center now has best chances to
add the feeling of being disrespected and outright anger into the mix.
Or it can create a feeling of relief, of
being respected, valued, even some satisfaction; this in spite of having come
into the need of asking for support. Here the service agents have the opportunity
to create a positive customer experience out of a poor one – one that will
overlay the negative one.
Use Customer Service To Create Positive Emotions
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| Source Sitecore/Avanade |
Which one is better for
the company – and the company’s bottom line? The answer to this question is
pretty obvious. Inmoment Research recently released a study that
clearly established links between positive experiences and positive outcomes
for a company. And this was not the first study finding that investing into
positive customer experiences results in positive outcomes for the company.
A 2016
study by Sitecore and Avanade showed a number of tangible business benefits
that can be related to this investment.
The open secret is that there is an easy way
to turn a customer who is on the edge into a satisfied and happy one. This way
works around recognizing what the customer values:
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Their time
·
Their channel
·
Getting their issue resolved
This way clearly involves the smartphone.
After all this is the switchboard of their lives and in all likelihood also the
device where the issue occurred.
Go Social? No Way!
You may say: “Go social! Twitter, Facebook!
People go there all the time! And they are getting fast and efficient help
there!”
Do they? Most customers aren’t getting fast
and efficient help on social networks. Only few do. Mainly those with loud
voices, because of having large follower numbers.
And why are people resorting to social
media? They use them as a last resort after the traditional ways didn’t work.
In other words, because they are
disappointed, frustrated and likely even angry. So they act as derailers of the
brand, instead of being brought on the way of becoming promoters or even
ambassadors.
Resolve Issues Fast, The Customers’ Way
This is where conversational interfaces,
messaging and mobile in-app support come into the picture. This combination
allows a customer to directly cut through to efficient service instead of
repeatedly iterating through information they have already given before. Via
the app the customer and many of the interactions (s)he did before the incident
are already known. An agent can get to work directly, maybe even supported by a
bot as a copilot, or even an autonomous one.
The emotional advantage starts right in the
beginning. In most of the cases the customer is already known and can be
addressed by name instead of being in the need of introducing him-/herself. And
due to the information that is already available the issue has been routed to
the right service agents who in turn can get right at work when the ticket
arrives on their desk.
And this may very well be before they even
reply, thus giving themselves the chance to be equipped with relevant knowledge
and perhaps already a solution suggestion.
As a result the customer feels treated
respectfully and with appreciation of his/her concerns and time.
Now, it is an illusion that every call
center has enough staff to be able to immediately react to every incident and
inquiry customers may have – ideal but an illusion.
There is nothing worse than the electronic
equivalent of holding music and the repeated statement that “your call is
important to us”! Its mere existence actually proves the contrary.
Use AI to Improve the Experience
This is where AI and machine learning, exposed
by chatbots take center stage.
In a supportive role the AI can already
supply the agent with possible solutions to the incident at hand before the
agent takes up the issue. These solutions can get derived from the FAQ,
internal documentation, a community, or from previous incidents that dealt with
a similar topic. The ranked listing of suggestions can then be presented to the
agent by a chatbot as part of the conversational interface that is used in
between customer, service agents, and the technology.
This already has the potential of
significantly speeding up the resolution process, thus addressing what the
customer values. It is a better engagement model that likely creates a positive
experience – maybe a little wow moment.
When enough trust has been established to
the AI, the chatbot can get into an autonomous role and engage with the
customer before an agent takes over. The human agent then becomes the
escalation point for issues that the system cannot resolve without human
interaction. To get into this escalation the bot could offer and schedule a
callback by a person or simply do a handover to the next service level after
informing the customer about the necessity for this.
In this model even an explicit FAQ can be
made obsolete as the chatbot can serve as a front end to it.
The results?
Conversational interfaces, alone or
supported by chatbots have a profoundly positive impact on the business. The main
benefits are:
·
Customer service is addressed
the customer way
·
Faster incident resolution
·
More satisfied customers who
have a better customer experience
Satisfied customers have more positive emotions
about a company. A positive base is more likely to perceive an engagement as positive,
which means it turns into a positive customer experience. And positive customer
experiences create positive business outcomes.
It is that simple.
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