Today’s consumers want and expect to have an enjoyable customer journey with your brand. Not only that, they expect that to happen quickly and effortlessly and with multiple channels of communication. We live in a world where around the clock interaction has become the norm, and we believe that companies that ignore this, do so at their peril:
A recent Microsoft study into customer satisfaction levels found that 96% of consumers cite excellent customer service as a reason for their loyalty to a brand.
40% of consumers who contact a company through social media demand a response within an hour and 79% expect to hear back within 24 hours.
If a consumer has a sales or marketing related question, 82% expect an immediate response.
If your company wants to enhance its customer experience, you’re in the right place. Here at SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL, we understand that the customer service you provide has an impact on your bottom line.
Your customers will move onto your competitors if they do not have a positive experience with you. So how can you innovate to retain customer loyalty through consistent and positive customer experience? Here are just three of our favourite ideas to improve customer experience:
Relevance
Translate your customer service strategy into meaningful and actionable nuggets for your employees. Your approach will resonate, be relevant and have meaning to people on the front line in a way that no strategy paper ever will. It’s a way of your teams identifying with your brand and seeing how they can help provide a better overall service to your customers. If your employees understand why excellent customer service is essential and how they can play a part in that, they are more engaged and better equipped to implement your customer service strategy.
One simple idea is to focus on the use of names eg customer service employees introducing themselves or wearing a name badge. This works wonders for providing customers with a more personalized experience.
Emotional Connection
You want your customers to feel strongly positive towards your company. After all, when customers identify with your brand and believe you appreciate and value them, they’re more likely to establish a positive emotional connection with your company.
This year’s UK Customer Service Index survey 2020 found that M&S Bank topped the charts for customers’ emotional connection. This category measures how much an organization generates feelings of trust and reassurance in their customers.
Encourage your teams to use humour (where appropriate) while being respectful at the same time, when dealing with customers.
By giving customers a sense of comfort when they interact with your brand as well as a personalized experience, you’ll make them feel like they actually matter, which works wonders for establishing a connection.
SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL’s personal, coaching and collaborative style, engenders employee engagement to enhance your customer experience. This helps to ensure you keep your promises to your customers at each interaction they have with you.
Technology AND the Human Touch
Yes, invest in technology that supports your customer service strategy. Yes, use chat boxes, emails and instant messaging, but don’t sit back and assume it’ll do all your work for you. Remember that the tone and voice of your messaging needs to be personalized and reflect back to the customer so that they feel they are being heard. And 70% of consumers still want to interact with a human, rather than a bot. Fact.
Ensure you capture customer feedback data in real-time. For instance, an online survey after someone’s interacted with your company.
Customers want it to be easy to reach your company and receive a response. Simplify the process by ensuring all your communications tools (website, social media, emails and so on) tell customers how they can reach you and when. Ensure all your automated responses have a personal touch to them and include information on how long a customer should expect to wait for an answer.
Let Us Help
SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL understands the importance of placing customer experience at the heart of everything you do. Devising a smart strategy is just the first step and the real work is in embedding it throughout the organisation: every employee, every day.
We can help you align your brand identity and employee engagement so that your customer experience isn’t just innovative, but is at the core of everything you do. Contact us today and find out how we can help you provide inspiring customer service.