Customers want more than just a great product or service, they want a great experience. A great experience is what will separate oneself from the competition and turn one-time purchasers into loyal customers and brand ambassadors. And while the investments being made in customer experience are steadily growing, the majority of the conversation is centered around the customer and what can be done for them.
While this is certainly a core component of creating a unique and one-of-a-kind experience, it is just as important to invest in your employees and see how creating a great employee experience can directly translate to happy customers.
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Meeting Customers Where They Are
With a smartphone in nearly everyone’s pocket, customers today have the ability to communicate with one another in all sorts of ways. Whether it is through a phone call, text, through an app, or via social media, customers have numerous communication channels available. However, when it comes to reaching out to support, options are typically limited.
Employees and support agents should be able to meet their customers on their channel of choice. Allowing customers to interact with support on their preferred channel instantly reduces potential frustration, making it not only easier for the customer, but for the agent as well.
Opening up channels also gives teams the ability to create a more specialized team of support agents. Training agents to be experts on specific channels, products, or situations can help expedite support issues and resolve customer issues faster. It also positions employees in comfortable and familiar environments where they feel the most empowered to go above and beyond and do a great job. At the end of the day, a familiar, comfortable, and seamless environment for support agents will translate into the conversations they are having with customers.
As previously mentioned, nearly every customer today has a smartphone in their pocket and is using it to communicate with each other and customer support. So why not leverage that device to its full potential?
We communicate both visually and contextually, sharing photos, videos, and screenshots with one another. The same should be done with customer support. If an agent is having a difficult time understanding the issue at hand, a simple request for a photo or video can help them visualize the situation and be better suited to guide a customer to a resolution faster.
Leveraging facial recognition, thumbprint verification, or pattern recognition can all be used to identify customers, speed up support conversation, and make for a more natural experience. The reality is, it is much more efficient for support agents to verify a customer through smartphone authentication technologies rather than asking them common and often forgotten verification questions like the name of your favorite high school teacher, and more.
Employees are Customers as Well
Remember, employees and support agents are customers too. It is important to get their feedback on great experiences they’ve had and see how those can be replicated within your customer support system.
Allowing customers to connect with support across multiple channels while also having the ability to truly use their smartphones to communicate visually and contextually doesn’t just make for a better experience for them, it also creates a better experience for employees. And at the end of the day, creating a unique, personal, and one-of-a-kind customer experience really starts with creating one for your employees.