EVOLUTION OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer experience has evolved beyond anything any of us could have seen back then. Consumers have become more reliant on digital devices, they want to self-serve, and they expect better services.
With most people working remotely, using mobile equipment has become the go-to option; either when you want to shop, raise an issue, etc… As a business, you need to ask yourself a few questions, are your customer service options effective for mobile users? How well does your website work on a phone or tablet?
It has been predicted that the mobile phone is inching closer to becoming the consumers’ preferred channel for communicating with the brands they are associating with.
Given a choice, the typical customer will choose a real-time support option e.g., chat support as compared to over the phone, email, or social channels. This makes sense intuitively; who wants to wait for an answer if they can get one immediately? Embedded chat support means people can stay in the flow of their task rather than shuffling off to make a phone call or send an email and wait for a reply
Over the last couple of years, there has been a shift to messaging and real-time engagements from phone support and email support.
Customers have come to prefer a quick chat over an in-store visit or phone queue; 40 % of consumers prefer live chat support versus 32% who prefer phone support.
For a business, this means you are getting clear and accurate data or feedback in real-time.
Both your customers and staff will demand more flexibility. As much as the customer can reach you in real-time, what happens to the person meant to serve them. Is your staff able to respond to your customer’s needs and queries fast enough?
If customers want support at 5 a.m. or 11 p.m. because those times suit them best, then as a business you’ll have to adjust to your clients’ needs/hours.
Customer service work was always suited to flexible hours, but companies were not always able to offer support at some hours either because the issue raised to them was not clear or the feedback didn’t get to them at the right time. For instance, if a customer raises an issue at a certain time when the service provider is not within the business then the likelihood of them being assisted is close to zero.
In the long run, the customer is left feeling frustrated and they may even move to another business. For a business, this is bad news because then it means reduced revenue. And it is even more expensive for a business to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing customer.
For a business to make it in this day and time, they can no longer afford to give services adequately, they have to be intentional and go the extra mile to actually get customers to actually like their brand and retain them.
Brands need to rethink their purpose and re-evaluate what’s important. Nearly everything about brands interacting with their customers is different than it was two years ago.
As a business, you need to interact with your customers in real-time, and the good news is that you can do all this on the Mteja360 mobile app.
Mteja360 mobile app gives brands and their customers the power to interact in real-time and ensure speedy resolution of their customer’s needs.
The mobile app is available for both your staff and customers.