Welcome to
On Feet Nation
rohit Online
Khalid Shaikh Online
Jerry Online
Andres Bruce Online
Terry Online
Debbie Online
Posted by rohit on August 14, 2024 at 3:19am 0 Comments 0 Likes
As the year 2020 unraveled, businesses struggled with a constant influx of customer complaints. Brands faced a wide range of disruptions to their operations. Customer service departments were forced to adapt quickly to uncertain situations and were tested like never before.
“58% of American consumers say that they will switch companies because of poor customer service.”
As we look further ahead to the customer service trends of 2021, we can expect organizations to continue ramping up their services for a vastly different world. The future of customer support is the future of your business, after all. Customer service techniques and trends determine your business growth. Businesses that don’t adapt to a higher standard of customer service ultimately risk their future.
Hence, it is time to revamp customer service trends to stay with a good rapport in the current market. With that being said, we bring you an exhaustive guide with trending customer service techniques that’ll help ramp up your overall business standards.
Today, most customer service operation technology is still not savvy enough for customers to avoid the difficulty of the old phone call methods. The current customer experience landscape is ripe for disruption. Although businesses are slowly making progress towards seamless and simpler customer service, the pace is not fast enough compared to the customer demand.
For a brand in 2021, being reactive isn’t enough; companies need to be proactive. They need to utilize emerging trends and technologies. This is easier said than done. By leveraging these customer support trends, many companies are indeed making giant leaps in customer service.
Most companies nowadays use technological tools at their fingertips to enable better customer interaction. But is that enough? Customers prefer self-service but will call you for complex matters. If you’re not providing any of the two, you lose customers. Let’s look at other such trends.
We stand at an awkward inflection where few companies are at the forefront of customer experience while a few are still struggling with the basics. Following are eight customer service techniques that’ll help you gain a competitive edge in the 2021 market and take your business to another level.
The most basic that customers expect from brands is that their problems are addressed carefully. Listening is also important because it enables agents to summarize their problems carefully and find the core of the issue. Doing so ensures that customers feel their issue is understood and that they are heard.
Your body posture strongly influences your ability to listen. Present yourself as an active listener to your customers. While talking on the phone, use some common listening indicators like “Okay,” “Yes,” “I see,” etc. while the customer is speaking. It shows the customers that you’re still with them.
At the end of the call or chat, paraphrase and explain to the speaker briefly what you’ve just heard, in slightly different words. It gives clarity and shows the speaker you’ve understood their problems.
Customers also expect you to respond to them as quickly as possible. The ideal time for the first response is usually 24 hours. Doing so ensures that the customer feels their issue is understood and addressed. The ability to communicate inadequately is a top job skill for customer service employees. Agents need to be clear and brief about the next steps that will help solve their issues.
Agents need to constantly tell the customers that their issue is understood and acknowledged. This helps create a mutual understanding with the customers and helps establish a better customer relationship. It also makes it easier for both parties to receive the information they need.
One of the greatest customer service techniques is to remain calm even when responding to an angry customer. Tone can be hard to decipher over live chat and text. Therefore, choosing your words carefully is an essential customer service technique as well. A good tone? Keep it as gentle and informative as possible regardless of the channel you’re using to interact with the customer.
The functionality of customer service chatbots is constantly expanding as we speak. Chatbot-powered services are here to stay, and this year we will witness its evolution and expansion.
In 2019, for 43% of U.S. online shoppers, chatbots were the most preferred communication channel. Since then, chatbots quickly went from an optional service tool to a must-have for every business customer support. It provides real-time support and makes it easy for customers to solve their queries. Following are some of the benefits and use cases of live chatbots:
Personalization is yet another popular customer service technique. Give a personalized touch to your support. Customers do not want to feel like they’re conversing with a robot. While it is important to use certain templates and canned responses, you can make a small difference by addressing them with their name.
Think of your templates as guidelines. For instance, the templates can provide a helpful structure for common responses. For example, a common structure of step-by-step responses. But make sure that they aren’t overly rigid and unwavering. Agents must be able to personalize their answers before replying to customers. This leads to a more personal, improved interaction—and more fulfilling customer service.
With 67% of customers using various channels like live chat, social media, and so on, good customer service now means responding to queries through these channels in an appropriate manner.
While soft skills like empathy, the ability to read a customer’s emotional state, and friendliness remain important, agents need additional skills as well. Each customer service channel benefits from a unique set of skills. Below mentioned are some channel-specific customer service techniques:
Phone
The agents solving queries through the phone need to keep their tone in check. While handling phone support, it’s important to remember to listen first and then validate their problems. You can mirror the customer’s language and tone unless it is angry and/or impatient. Once they’re done explaining their problems, acknowledge them, summarize their problem and proceed accordingly.
A good customer service technique while providing email support is personalization. Keep the emails personal yet structured and precise. Be specific while describing how you’ll help and make the email brief yet informative. Add links to any possible resources that might inform or help the customers. Perform thorough proofreading and spellcheck as well.
Chat
If you are providing live chat support, it requires a cross of phone and email skills. Chat is conversational and real-time, just like customer service over the phone, but it requires strong writing skills.
Social Media
When live chat is not available, customers may turn to social media for a faster response. Hence, you must ensure that you respond quickly. Acknowledge publically that you’re following up with them. React carefully to confrontation and use a gentle, informative tone.
Knowledge means power. The better your customer support teams understand your products, the better they will help others use the products. And they’ll be able to solve their issues faster. This also shines a light on product training. Brands must focus on product training and it must be a key part of onboarding processes and regular refreshers when updates and new releases happen.
Omnichannel is perhaps one of the most trending customer service techniques in 2021. Simply defined, omnichannel customer support is a strategy that combines all customer communication interaction points – social media, emails, meetings, etc. – to provide people with a consistent and unified brand experience. It is yet another customer service technique to improve your brand retention.
Statistics show that 47% of consumers admit using three to five different communication channels to get in touch. 90% of customers expect a consistent brand experience across all channels. Omnichannel solutions allow you to streamline your communication process through a single unified channel and saves time and labor.
In an omnichannel setting, you can offer a consistent customer experience regardless of the channel or touchpoint. It also ensures that agents can easily share context and notes about the customer’s previous interactions. The biggest benefit of omnichannel is that it entirely integrates into your customer portal. Hence, you do not have to jump between siloed channels or redirect to various platforms to send emails —it’s all right there.
Nowadays, companies use various customer service tools and techniques to gain a competitive edge and win over customers. Businesses need to make sure that they do not miss out on even a single customer.
Customer support has also expanded its demands; it is not just about resolving customer queries. Businesses constantly need to look out for trends and roadblocks and analyze them. They need analytics and reporting from time to time to be better prepared for the future. Many brands use self-service portals and knowledge bases to reduce the workload of their agents. As discussed above, live chat is the bare minimum.
Hence, adopting a technological tool that lets you do all this from a single unified interface is utterly necessary. Plus, you will need to access the customer data repeatedly to perform various tasks, hence an integrated CRM is the primary requirement. Worry not! We have a tool that can help you do all this seamlessly.
DeskXpand is an exceptional help desk management software that helps businesses provide quick resolutions to their customers and simplify their support. Functional experts and developers build it with certifications in their respective fields. It is a fully automated, omnichannel solution that caters to all types of business needs. It is a one-stop, fit-for-all solution to all your support needs and serves small to large businesses.
It helps businesses reduce high-cost, laborious, and redundant data-entry tasks. It also helps you follow all the customer service techniques mentioned above and makes it easier for you to provide seamless customer service. It lets you integrate multiple third-party tools as well.
Here are some of the prominent features of DeskXpand:
© 2024 Created by PH the vintage.
Powered by
You need to be a member of On Feet Nation to add comments!
Join On Feet Nation