How the Retail Industry Can Deliver Better CX Through Self-Service

Peter Milligan at 8×8 explains how the retail industry can deliver better CX through self-service.

A slogan from my early childhood memory recently popped into my head: “Let your fingers do the walking.” Does anyone else remember this, or for that matter, what it was an advertisement for?

This slogan was part of what is considered a very effective ad campaign for the Yellow Pages. If you remember the Yellow Pages, you are probably a Gen Xer.

And yes, the use of this very thick book of information was not to put on grandma or grandpa’s drivers’ seat so they could see over the steering wheel, or on your chair at the dining room table so you could reach your food.

It was also a vast source of information about products and services around your neighbourhood, town, and state.

The ad campaign and slogan, “Let your fingers do the walking,” was developed to send a message about how easy it was to use the Yellow Pages print directory compared to walking or driving around town and wasting your valuable time and money to look for a certain product or service. You could find just about anything you wanted in the Yellow Pages, from retailers selling all sorts of consumer goods, to pet stores and dentists. Sound familiar?

The New Way to Let Your Fingers do the Walking

Today we use Google, YouTube, TikTok and other internet search engines and platforms to let our fingers do the walking to find information about products and services that are either nearby or halfway around the world.

The key here is that we are using the power of the internet to self-serve and find what we want quickly and easily.

In fact, 65% of customers prefer self-service for simple matters. And most of the time we are looking for items that we want to purchase right away or to simply make an appointment for a service or to get an estimate.

So once you find a retailer offering a product or service you want to consume or use, how are they bringing self service, or the concept of ‘let your fingers do the walking’ to their websites? By implementing chatbots, powered by a user-friendly conversational AI platform.

This technology allows your business to deliver effective self-service experiences across all channels to resolve a wide range of customer inquiries, both simple and complex. In a recent Salesforce study, it was found that 69% of consumers prefer to use chatbots because they provide instant responses.

How Retailers Are Using Chatbots to Improve Self-Service

So, we’ve talked about the customer saving time and money by self-serving using internet search engines and other platforms to find products and services without having to drive all over town or travel around the world to find them.

Think about how retailers use intelligent chatbots to provide customers with frictionless self-service to order products or make an appointment without ever talking to an agent, the most expensive resource in your contact centre.

In fact, a recent study from Gartner predicted bots will cut contact centre agent labor costs by $80 billion In 2026.

Customers prefer self-service, and as noted above, they now expect it. Think about the ability to move from an internet search, to a website, and then complete the transaction without ever talking to an agent.

The customer experiences fast, efficient service and seamless transactions, while the retailer conserves their most valuable resource, live agents, for more complex, high value transactions. And according to a recent study, automating routine tasks allows 77% of agents to focus on that more complex work.

At the end of the day, your customers get the product or service they want quickly and easily while improving CSAT, NPS for the company—all essential to building brand loyalty. In addition, your company reduces costs, increases revenue, and improves overall CX. A win-win all the way around.

This blog post has been re-published by kind permission of 8x8 – View the Original Article

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About 8x8

8x8 is transforming the future of business communications as a leading Software-as-a-Service provider of voice, video, chat, contact centre, and enterprise-class API solutions, powered by one global cloud communications platform.

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Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.

Author: 8x8