Ever since the dawn of the digital age the customer journey is constantly evolving. Which in turn has every good company striving to provide the best digital customer experience.
Gone are the days when customers had to travel distances to get their queries resolved at the customer care centers or learn about products only at the store. Now every query can be resolved just in a few taps. And customers can learn about the products and the brand at the comfort of their homes.
All thanks to the digitalization of customer support systems!
In this article we will explore the enormous changes, developments, that technology has brought in customer support systems and how that has enhanced customer experience.
By the end of this article you will have insights into:
- What is Digital Customer Experience?
- Why Digital Customer Service?
- How Can You Effectively Digitize Your Customer Service?
- Common Mistakes in Multichannel Strategy
- 6 Ways Digitalization Has Transformed Customer Support
- How can you Unlock Best Customer Service With Deskera?
What is Digital Customer Experience?
Digital customer experience is all the online interactions a customer has with a brand online, virtually. This interaction may be with a company’s website, mobile application, social media page, YouTube channel, live chats or chatbots. Or any other channel where the interaction is virtual. But why is digital customer service important? Let's find out.
Why Digital Customer Service?
Customers today expect to interact with the brands across multiple digital channels. This as a result has encouraged companies across various industries and sectors to adopt digital customer service.
A recent study suggests that 70 per cent of retail purchases happen online today, approximately 34 percent of online retail purchases take place from a mobile device.
Businesses with digital customer support systems have seen an increase in the timeliness of addressing customer queries and issues. Moreover, a well-designed digital support system provides a user interface that is easy to operate and find information.
A study conducted by McKinsey and Company shows that digital customer services increase customer satisfaction by a groundbreaking 33%. Hence, digital customer service is a must for every business today.
Now that we have understood what customer service is and why you should adopt it, let us find out how you can effectively digitize your customer service.
How Can You Effectively Digitize Your Customer Service?
Companies spend or say invest millions and millions of dollars in order to make sure they provide an unforgettable customer service to their clients. Now that the majority of the business deals happen online, it is important that you ace your customer service game as well.
Here is a list of things you must do to enhance your digital customer experience.
- Optimize your customer service for mobile phones.
- Provide an omnichannel experience.
- Customize customer experience.
- Go multichannel with your customer service.
- Use data and analytics to ascertain the preferences of your customers and what they don’t like across different channels.
- Use a user-centered design (UCD).
- Build a solid system feedback system for customers.
- Digital self-service systems
Common Mistakes in Multichannel Strategy
Let us look at some of the common mistakes made in strategy:
Ignoring customers
There is no doubt that customers are your priority as business owners and you only want to provide them with the best customer service. However, in digital customer service a few mistakes tend to happen. Be it accidently or carelessly. However, take it as a rule- Always hear the voice of your customer.
There are businesses that ignore/miss customer queries through their website and social media channels. In turn, these mistakes cost companies a lot of money and brand reputation that took years to build. You will not be able to build your brand further and sales count will instantly go low.
Hence, it is important to keep all your communication channels integrated and the customer service team on their toes so that they do not miss out on a customer query.
Keeping Customers Waiting
According to a survey, 60% of customers stated that waiting is the most frustrating part of customer service. It is true that customer service teams try their best to resolve customer queries as quickly as possible and not keep them waiting. However there are unavoidable times when customers have to wait for long periods.
The waiting period in digital customer service is different when customers are at the store waiting as compared to online. As we all know, waiting in a queue in a physical store is more tangible than a queue for a live chat interaction. Or to even wait for a delivery to be made. There is a lack of assurance.
Hence, customers often need more assurance when they are looking at a product online, making a purchase online, or have product related queries.
Moreover, when it comes to keeping customers waiting online, what makes it worse is keeping them in the dark. Instead of just keeping them waiting while you take time to resolve the customer queries/issues, you can keep your customers updated with small progress.
One Communication Channel is Not Enough
Considering there are so many communication channels present today, be it emailing, messaging, social media, phone calls, and so on, the customers have their own favorite. It is not necessary that all your customers like to communicate over the same channel. You can use social media and integrate business phone service at the same time
To explain this better, take for instance, Millennials and Gen Z prefer email and social media channels over other channels. Hence, trying to provide your service only over the phone would be a weak move. Furthermore, this would frustrate your customers and they will immediately walk back.
This makes it important to open different digital communication channels so that every customer has their preferred communication channel available. To avoid this, you might want to adopt an omnichannel approach to your online presence.
By offering multiple communication channels, you’re proving that you care for your customers and you are doing everything to fit their preferences. And that you are offering at most accessibility as part of your customer experience. As a result, your customers will tag you as a caring, communicative brand.
Bouncing Customers Between Different Communication Channels
Have you contacted a customer care service on call to get a query resolved and have been asked to email your issue/query? It is certainly the second most frustrating part of customer service after waiting periods. Unfortunately, it’s a common mistake.
According to a recent study only 20% of companies solve a customers’ query issue during first contact. This makes a customer feel that they are taking one step forward and two steps back.
Customers contact you through a specific channel that they find most convenient. So, when you tell them to shift you are telling them your preference and you expect them to mold as per you.
This is not the best impression you make on your customer while they reach out to you for help. So, instead of sending your customers to different channels, you must resolve customer queries on the channel the first contact you on.
Wrong Tone
Now you must be wondering, in digital customer service, how possibly can your tone go wrong? Well, it is possible especially when you are taking care of customer queries on social media. But, speaking in the wrong tone to your customers can go wrong in any channel.
As per a study, when customers are denied a request with a casual tone and not an apologetic one makes 78% of customers dissatisfied with the service. The satisfaction of customers goes up when they’re handled more politely and spoken to in a more apologetic tone.
Not Taking Customer Feedback
Feedback is a very essential stage of customer service. It not only just reflects that you care for your customers and what they think about your service but it practically helps you to improve your customer service.
You can take the customer feedback into account whenever you are making any development to your digital customer service. This way you will be catering to the exact needs of your customers.
A staggering 77% of customers view brands who ask for feedback more favorably. However there are still so many companies that fail to make the most out of this opportunity. It also helps you improve your customer service metrics.
Keeping Self-Service Out of Customer Service
Self-service option in customer service is a win-win for both customers and the company. This is because, firstly, most of the customers like to be able to fix their own problems without having to involve the customer care team of any company.
Secondly, when your customer care team has too much on their plate, it can certainly be difficult for them to manage all the customer queries. Hence, providing self-service options can take a few queries off your customer service team’s plate
Self-service resources improve your customer service by 80%. Just make sure that the resources you provide are self-sufficient so that your customers don’t have to turn to your competitors for help.
Lack of Personalization
By personalization we don’t mean personalization of products or services that you offer to your customers. But personalization of your customer service is of equal importance. A recent study suggests that 63% of customers have stopped purchasing products or services due to poor personalization.
While you may find this mistake as an extreme one, if you want to increase your customer retention you must focus on personalizing your customer service.
Lack of Appreciation
When your customers come to you with an issue with your product, you have already lost a point. Now with customer service you have the opportunity to win it back by offering them an incentive for believing in you and contacting you with the problem.
Discounts and free gifts make for a great gesture of appreciation and gratitude for your customer’s patience. This will not only reflect that you are humble, helpful, and caring as a brand but shows that you are keen on improving your service to them.
We hope this helped you understand what mistakes to avoid in digital customer service and why. Now let us look at the different ways in which digitalization has transformed customer service and what can be your takeaway from these transformations.
6 Ways Digitalization Has Transformed Customer Support
Let us look at some ways we can digitalize your customer support:
#1 From In-Person Interactions to Customer Service Chatbots
“The chatbots of the future don’t just respond to questions. They talk. They think. They draw insights from knowledge graphs. They forge emotional relationships with customers.” – Christi Olson
Chatbots are a type of conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution designed to assist humans interact with machines using natural language. They are essentially a piece of software that can engage in a text-based conversation.
There was a time when organizations just had a number of teams solely meant for customer service. Now chatbots is an add-on to the existing customer support system.
The major reason why chatbots came into existence was because customers want faster answers. While we are not saying that a customer support agent cannot do that, practically it can just be difficult to resolve problems at a god’s speed.
Moreover, it is not necessary that you have a support team present 24/7, in this case a chatbot can answer your customer queries at any time, anywhere. Also, Chatbots help with basic yet important questions, so your support agents can focus on more complex issues.
You can also integrate your ERP with chatbot which will improve your business performance. To know more about how it will help you, head over to our article- How chatbot integrated ERO can enhance your business performance.
By using a customer service chatbot, you will not only improve your customer experience but it will enable you to build a more robust customer support experience whether on your website or mobile app.
#2 Customer Service in Social Media
Social media is another legendary work of digitalization and the internet. We share everything on social media today from life events to promoting our businesses. Social media has become a big platform for businesses of all sizes. This makes the space for customer service in social media too.
Today companies with a good online presence have been able to build a positive brand reputation in the eyes of the customers. As a result of which, brands started taking customer complaints or queries online on social media platforms.
So, apart from only sharing pictures, videos, and life events, customers are taking their grievances with brands on social media too.
When a brand resolves or helps a customer publicly, it not only shows their loyalty and attitude towards their customers but proves their credibility as a brand.
#3 Self-Service Portals
Recent study suggests that 88% of customers expect brands to have an online self-service portal. This means that those days are gone when every customer wanted the customer care agents to visit them personally or pay special attention to their problems or queries. Customers today want to solve their own problems.
“A self-service solution does not mean you don’t offer customer service. On the contrary, self-service is a way to enhance.”– Shep Hyken
Today, to let customers help themselves, companies are coming up with FAQs, how-to-guides, articles, and so on to keep answers ready for all the questions. With the help of a self-service portal, customers can immediately pin point their problem and quickly refer to the how-to guides or FAQs.
A thing or two to remember while creating a service portal is that content is easily searchable. Always check the popular trends while writing the articles, check your product/service, spot some common queries that popped up in your head and make an FAQ out of it.
You can also get customers involved in the process and have their questions highlighted. This not only cuts a large chunk of tasks out of your customer support agent but also helps you empower your customers and take charge.
#4 Video Chat
Covid-19 has accelerated the digital transformation. Businesses quickly shifted to video conferencing for internal as well as external meetings. Not like it was a continued practice, but with Covid-19, the majority of them had to shift to video conferencing.
To your surprise, video conferencing has also taken the customer service in companies by storm. This is not just as the result of Covid-19 restrictions but was prevalent right from the digitalization of customer service.
Today video chats are used for customer service, customer support cases, that is if a customer is facing issues with a product or customers facing customer service issues.
With real-time product demos giving the customer a 360-degree view of a product, creating a shopping experience resembling an authentic in-store one, video chat/video calling is a go-to for many.
As a result of this companies have been able to gather good customer feedback on customer service provided by the companies.
A study conducted in 2020 suggests that those with the highest ROI for their contact center investments have increased revenue, improved customer ratings and reduced operational costs through the use of advanced customer experience technologies, such as video for customer engagement. Video chat as an answer to digitalization has contributed a big time to customer service today.
Here are few significant examples how video chat is used to in customer service
- Telehealth
- Self-service
- Remote learning about a product or service
- Technical support
- Insurance claims
- Closing sales deals with customers online
And many more.
#5 Email Customer Service
Communication on emails was our WhatsApp, Facebook, Google messenger of the good old days. And even if these new communication platforms have resurfaced, emails continue to stay close to the majority of us, especially businesses.
Emails are used by businesses to market their products to the customers. It has now enabled them to also alert their customers about new product offerings, and offer discounts, gifts, or promotions.
Emails are also used by your customers to troubleshoot their queries/issues that they have with your products or services. It allows them to provide you feedback in brief.
By this, it is easy to realize that, by far, emails have become a valuable tool to provide excellent customer service.
If you want an effective email customer service you might want to keep the following points in mind:
Respond promptly to your customers
When your customers have a complaint or a query, they don’t want to wait for your reply to start with. Hence, you need to respond immediately to each customer email. Even if there is an automated response that updates them when and what will be the next steps on their query.
Problem Solving Attitude
An email that says you have received the customer’s query/problem, does not mean that you can then take long hours to resolve that query. You must look for ways to immediately respond to the queries. Come back with solutions when there are problems.
Send a follow-up email
Sending a follow-up mail reassures your customer that you care for them and you want to be sure that you have successfully helped the customer. You can send a follow-up mail once you have answered a query, once you have resolved a problem, or when you have suggested a solution. This reflects your level of concern as a business owner.
Customer Feedback
How do you know that you performed well as a company in resolving the customer complaint? This is when customer feedback comes into the picture.
In case the customer interacts with a customer care agent, the feedback will help you crack how well the customer agent performed and what can be improved in your customer support system.
Turn the customer contact into an opportunity
Once you have built a connection with your customers or built a network with a customer, take permission from them to share product related updates with them.
Always ask them if they would like any updates from your company. This will be easy marketing for your products and an easy way to retain your customers.
#6 Help Desk in Customer Service
The stage from turning your potential leads into customers and then converting them to Your loyal customers are a long journey. Moreover it is not as straightforward as it seems. However, you can simplify and improve their customer journey by providing good customer service.
One of the ways in which you can do that is by making help desk software available to your customers. A help desk software is helpful for the following reasons:
- Streamlines communication, both internally and externally
- Makes customer self-dependent
- Helps agents build their expertise with the help of surveys
The right combination of customer service tools can make your customer service a five star experience for customers. Hence, help desk software is a must for any business today. It is considered as one of the best innovations of digitalization in customer service.
Many businesses have already invested in help desk software, now it’s time for you to invest in it too.
Now that you have understood the ways in which digitalization has transformed customer service, let’s find out how Deskera can help you in your customer service.
Unlock Best Customer Service With Deskera
Deskera aims to simplify your business and with its diverse features makes sure you are providing nothing but the best to your customers. With Deskera CRM helpdesk, you can easily categorize, prioritize, track and solve customer support tickets.
Deskera CRM helpdesk also allows you to generate a smart knowledge base for your customers in just a few taps, as a means of self-service. Create a smart repository of articles and sections so that your customers can find answers by themselves. Share relevant articles with your customers for fewer tickets.
Moreover, With preconfigured templates and quick setup, you can have your help site up and running with no coding required. With Deskera CRM helpdesk, you take control and manage your sales, your customer support all at one place.
Deskera also allows you to connect your support email with the help desk feature to receive and respond to customer issues and queries.
You no longer have to juggle with too many tasks or customer issues. With Deskera you can track and solve customer support tickets with ease. Simply connect your support email for automated ticket creation.
Categorize, prioritize, and assign tickets to your support staff. View all your customer support communications in one place with the help desk feature.
Create custom ticket views by selecting priority, status, assignee, and more conditions. View relevant tickets on your ticketing dashboard.
Deskera CRM helpdesk not only enables you to make customer service for your customers a breeze but also improves the efficiency of your support team. After all, the well-designed tools that Deskera arms you with, you save on your support time.
Don’t believe us? Get a free trial for 15 days and find out yourself!
Key Takeaways
- Digitalization has transformed customer service.
- Digital customer experience is all the online interactions a customer has with a brand online, virtually.
- Digital customer service will boost the growth of your company
- Avoid ignoring your customers, keeping them waiting for long hours, have an omni-channel strategy, don’t juggle your customers between different communication channels, use the right tone, always get customer feedback, always have self-service options, personalize your service, and appreciate your customers for reaching out to you.
- Digitalization paved the way for online customer service interactions with Chat bots.
- Social media has transformed into a great platform for customer service.
- Self-service portals as a result of digitalization have improved customer service.
- Video chat is the future of customer interaction and customer service.
- Email in customer service is the best pick to have the best customer service support system,
- Help Desk in customer service is all you need to make the success story of your company.
- Unlock the best customer service with Deskera CRM software.
Video calling can be the solution that glues the fragmented customer journey together. It offers the opportunity for the whole customer experience to be brought online,
