Jay Reilly of SoundBite Communications provides 5 tips to shape the customer experience in an evolving, multi-channel world.
- Listen to your customers. 75% of customers say that in the past year the quality of customer service provided by companies has stayed the same or got worse. There is a clear disconnect here as 50% of employees at the contact centre think service has improved.
- Be proactive versus reactive. Use proactive communications to let the customer know something important first, giving them the option to connect to an agent. 100% of customers said it is appropriate for a company they do business with to proactively contact them.
- Today’s customers want to be heard. 66% of customers are taking the initiative to contact a company after a bad experience, effectively seeking a resolution before they decide whether or not to take their business elsewhere. They are taking the time to reach out to you, and they expect and warrant responses in return.
- Listen via all of your contact channels. Over half of customers surveyed reported their bad experiences last year, and although the majority (71%) are contacting live agents on the phone or in person, 23% are using email and text messaging. Customers using online feedback forms also expect a response as much as those who call, and they are just as likely to defect if they don’t get a response or resolution to their issues. 20% of the customers who reported their bad experiences said they did not receive a response from the company, which ultimately led to over 50% of them deciding to take their business elsewhere.
- Aggressively promote the fact that you want feedback. You want to know when you get it wrong. Thus, make it easy for customers to contact you and provide them with immediate access to empowered and empathetic agents. 41% of customers who did not bother to report their bad experiences (a third defected without saying a word) said they did not bother because there was no convenient way to report it to the offending company.
Companies have a clear opportunity to improve customer experience in a multi-channel world, underscoring the need to take action in 2012.
For more pointers to improve customer experience, read this article.
Author: Jo Robinson
Published On: 30th Nov 2011 - Last modified: 28th Oct 2020
Read more about - Hints and Tips, Customer Service, CX
While your tips seem fair and effective but i feel that the biggest challenge here is to develop a sense of responsibility in call center agents. Most of the times when i call into the customer care department of a company i feel that the agents are actually not interested in solving my queries. It seems as if they are just trying to get rid of the call.
So first organizations must work towards developing a sense of responsibility in their agents. Rest of the good things will automatically follow.
For me the single most important tip to improve the customer experience is to have a clear vision of what * the customer * wants the experience to be, lead and live it CONSISTENTLY, engage and empower your people to deliver it.
If you don’t believe it; your people won’t; and then your customers won’t experience it.
The customer experience is about person to person “moments”. You can’t make a difference if the heart and soul if your business isn’t behind it. Everything else is fluff and technology.