Over 46% of customers remember bad experiences from two years ago and only 21% remember good experiences from the same period (source: Zendesk report). If a customer interacts with you via any means of communications, you should be well prepared otherwise you might end up with unhappy customers or even bad reviews. The story of improving customer experience in 2021 is very different since customers are online more than ever. They interact with businesses via multiple channels of communication from web chat, emails, to voice and video calls. With staff working remotely, how could you manage to make sure that the customer satisfaction level is well maintained, or even improved?
Firstly, why focusing on this now?
Because “In today’s digital economy, customers want their interactions to be quick and their problems to be solved right away”.
It might not be always as easy as it sounds, the shift to a digital-first world is not simple; the covid-19 pandemic has turned six years’ worth of digital transformation into six months; customers are spending time on the internet more than ever before – keeping up with all these changes is years ago.
Customer experience (CX) has never been as important as it is now. More than two-thirds of companies now compete primarily based on CX1 – meaning your competitors are currently doing all they can to keep their customers happy and attract new ones, with rave reviews and a high Net Promoter Score (NPS). Therefore, making your customer happy should be the top priority of your business. So how could you be the champion in the CX battle in 2021?
Here are the top 5 tips we hope could help you enhance the customer experience you are giving to your customer in 2021.
Top 5 tips to improve the customer experience in 2021
1. Give the immediate response
We are all customers, so we understand how frustrating ‘on hold’ music is. Being kept waiting for too long when you just want your issues to be solved as quickly as possible is just a nightmare. Give your customer what they want: speed and convenience. They want to know that your business is respecting their time, understanding customer interactions should be convenient and scheduled around their time, not yours. As a matter of fact, 60% of customers say valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good service.
2. Try to solve it within the first call
One transferred call after another, too often your agents are not equipped to solve customer issues. In the perfect CX world, the agent who answers your customer’s call, or interacts with them by email or chat, should be the perfect person to solve their issue. Your agents should be able to easily access customer information and data, avoiding unnecessary transfers to other departments – therefore improving first contact resolution.
3. Offer control and personalisation
Younger generations are more likely to get in touch via webchat and social media, while older ones prefer voice and email. Your business offers at least two or three of those communications channels, but what happens if your customers want to seamlessly go from one onto the next – from a call to webchat, or from email to a call?
Having multiple communications channels is all well and good, but what your customers really want is control. The control to move to a webchat if they’re busy and can’t be on a call anymore, knowing that the agent on the other side already knows of their previous interaction and can continue helping them without having to start over.
4. Understand their issues and empathise
It’s hard enough to have an issue with a product or service, the last thing anyone needs is a grumpy agent who doesn’t know how to deal with and disregards your problems. No matter how digital the world goes, customers still value the human touch as one of the top aspects of their experience. In a world where nothing is certain, your customers want you to understand their issues and empathise with them.
5. Give your customer the experience they deserve
Just like customer requirements and demands have changed, so has the technology that can help your business give your customers what they want. Obsolete, on-premise call centres, often disjointed from the rest of the business and incapable of meeting customer expectations, are a thing of the past. SMEs hoping to win the CX battle should be looking at integrating a cloud-based omnichannel contact centre. Luckily, with the right partner, this isn’t an unattainable option anymore.
A cloud contact centre solution is easier to deploy than its legacy counterparts, it doesn’t require long-term CapEx investments, and it gives you the flexibility the scale depending on business needs.
Omnichannel, Advanced queue management, call back, intelligent routing and much more. We have partnered with Gamma to bring you Horizon Contact – the cloud contact centre solution specially designed for SMEs like you at a price you can afford. Let us show you how the solution works for your business, book a demo now.
