Support Risk Mitigation
TeleworkPH
Published: September 18, 2022
Technology allows businesses to speed up and automate their support processes. This could prove to be a two-fold blow because it can either work for you or against you.
While customers love how technology enables quick response times and convenience at their fingertips, still, nothing comes close to human connections even in the digital world.
Today’s modern marketing methods and the internet have made it possible to connect and communicate with customers 24/7. Yes, in an overly connected world, so many people still feel that lull and disconnect.
Can Chatbots Replace Human Customer Support?
One mistake that some companies make is to entrust the entire customer experience to chatbots, which tend to replace human customer support. One reason why they do this is to save on costs when hiring staff. However, letting technology take over the entire CX landscape can take a toll on your business.
When the human element is gone, customers look for it elsewhere.
Now, technology is undeniably pivotal to business success, especially with today’s consumers. However, completely depending on tech and devaluing human connections is where most businesses fail the first time.
Once you strip the human element in a business, customer trust and brand loyalty wane.
According to a Genesys Global Survey, “self-service that is not intelligently integrated with assisted service is a key area of concern.”
The economies are evolving and one thing has been consistent, customer experience eclipses product quality and price. It’s easy to see how technology and social media have made it easier for customers to compare products and services, and get swayed to try other brands.
But, if you are able to strengthen and deepen brand connections, you’ll discover why it’s essentially the winning element that helps a business outperform the competition.
Now, the good news is that, despite the rapid digital evolution, businesses still give precedence to humanizing their CX. And as expected, companies that focus on humanizing customer support will thrive in this ever-changing economy.
How Can Customer Support Humanize Customer Experience
What keeps customers hooked to a brand?
Why do you keep buying from a brand despite new enticing promotions from the competition?
Personalization easily cuts through the noise of random sameness. Nothing beats that human spontaneous cheeky laugh that you experience when talking to customer support. Many customers feel more comfortable getting a real response from human or live customer support compared to getting repetitive chatbot responses.
Did you know that customers are willing to pay more for a product or service when they know they’ll get a good customer experience?
It’s not the quick sale that matters here – it’s the long ride.
So, you have to ask yourself this: What’s in it for your customers for the long term? Will they enjoy the ride?
Yes, give them more reasons to stay committed to loving your brand.
The internet has paved the way for consumers to have a plethora of options when it comes to products and services. It was a game-changer for many businesses that wanted to grow and scale. However, competition has become tougher as well – and your only selling point is personalized and humanized customer support.
Customer care isn’t just how you refer to customer support. It’s called customer care for a reason. There is an SOP on providing customer care and support teams should follow through and be consistent.
Below are top tips on humanizing your customer support in a hyper-charged digital market:
Understand that Humans are Social Beings
You won’t find another person like you in this lifetime. Do you agree with this statement? Yes, human beings are unique in such a way that no two people are exactly alike. However, all human beings share some common characteristics like the need for socialization. Yes, as social beings, people need interactions.
It’s important to keep this characteristic in mind when designing your customer experience program to gain clarity and refocus on orchestrating happy memories with your brand.
Build a Detailed Customer Avatar
Humanize your customer experience by building a detailed customer avatar out of your big data. By taking cues from behavioral patterns, you can be on-point in meeting the needs of your customers. This eliminates the guesswork from complicated behavioral data. More so, the time of day and geolocation can help provide you with more relevant content for your customers ensuring a seamless experience.
Personalize CX
In the many encounters with your brand, you become memorable when you know how to personalize the customer experience. Your customers will often choose different or multiple paths when interacting with your brand. And you have to make sure that no matter what route your customers choose, you will have several touchpoints or opportunities to provide a superior customer experience.
Data integration is critical to humanizing CX because it allows you to see and observe customer behavior as it engages with your brand. So, when you know the drives of particular buyer behavior, it’s easy to decrypt why customers keep on buying from you or why they abandon their carts. Once you know what propels people into taking a particular action, you can implement strategies to enhance the CX experience and boost sales.
Create Meaningful Conversations
Integrating chatbots into your business can help you communicate with your customers 24/7. AI-powered chatbots can easily respond to questions or any concerns of customers whenever the need arises. You become omnipresent with a chatbot.
Embracing new tech can help you duplicate yourself in your business and save time. Creating meaningful conversations with your customers becomes easier with the help of a chatbot because it enhances CX but superior customer support initiates the emotional connection.
Investing in AI chatbots will help you understand your customer preferences and buyer behavior especially when engaging with your brand. It can identify common queries and problems that will help your brand respond and engage better in critical touchpoints.
Speed It Up!
Customer is king and they can be very demanding especially because they are surrounded by different options. No brand is indispensable nowadays unless you practice CX by heart. Proper data integration can help you deliver results faster. You can quickly respond to a bad review and perhaps turn a negative or poor CX into a positive one.
Digital platforms are evolving fast and so are products and services. Continuous innovations help shape customer expectations especially when it comes to speedy response and results.
However, throughout the customer journey, consumers will always gravitate towards brands that are able to personalize the customer experience. And when they’re satisfied with the experience, customers always know how to reciprocate.
Your customer support should always be centered on creating unique and personalized CX tailor-fit to your market.
Train for Soft Skills
Customer service is one of the top soft skills to train your customer support with. Apart from the tech know-how, your customer support should know how to build rapport with customers and respond with empathy, especially when faced with complaints.
Respect Your Customer’s Time
Nobody likes to wait around for something or someone to come along. The same thing applies to putting customer calls on hold for a long time while you transfer them from one person to another.
The delayed response rate can be very frustrating especially when your customers have problems with a product or service that needs urgent and immediate attention. Respect your customer’s time and provide them with information on where they can reach you best.
You can speed up resolution rates by investing in a robust technology that can process data faster and then direct it to experienced and well-trained customer support. The goal here is to resolve pain points immediately or on first contact.
Provide VIP Treatment
It goes without saying that every customer wishes to be treated like a VIP. And brands should take a cue from that.
Who would say NO to a VIP treatment? I know I wouldn’t. I would even give it a triple kill if I could. It’s a no-brainer. Treating people like VIPs is the easiest way to win the hearts of your customers.
Reward brand loyalty with a VIP or red carpet treatment. Part of enriching the customer experience is to make your customers feel special or a priority in your business especially if they have been supporting and buying from your business for the longest time. Most customers won’t mind paying more for a superior customer experience.
Keep Your Support Customers in the Loop
When will I get my refund? Can I have this damaged product replaced?
When your customers are pressed for time and have experienced problems with their purchase, you have to step in and resolve the issue right away. Humanizing this process is very important for you to keep your customers despite some issues with your product or service.
Now, you should always loop your customers into the resolution process. Let them know what will happen next and what is being done.
Don’t leave them hanging or groping for answers. Let your customers know the steps taken to resolve the problem so they will be confident about the entire process. Don’t wait for them to nag you about what’s going on instead beat them to it by keeping them informed.
Dip into Social Media
Social media allows brands to deepen their relationships with customers. It’s a heavily personalized experience that allows your customers to interact and engage with your brand in a more familiar way.
More customers post their feedback now on social media than anywhere else. While it can be disheartening to see negative feedback or complaints, look at this as a vehicle to help your business grow. So, when customers have something to share about their experience with your brand, you listen.
Tuning into social media can help you zero in on what customers love (and hate) about your brand. It’s impossible for a brand or business to have zero haters or complaints – even the biggest brands have their fair share of haters.
Human Support Connections Matter
When it comes right down to excellent customer service, a company’s thrust on humanizing customer support allows it to lead the pack. Human connections and conversations matter because that is how you connect to your customers. And it’s undeniably the lifeline of your business.
When it comes to risk mitigation, humanizing the customer acquisition and support process is pivotal. While AI-powered chatbots can help your business get optimized in terms of speed and 24/7 availability, the human element holds the entire CX strategy together.
Need to humanize your CX game? At TeleworkPH, we have a top-of-the-line customer support team who are trained in soft skills so your customers get the red carpet treatment every time. While we take pride in our advanced technology speed and self-service portal, we are proudest to have the best customer support team that will help your business kick it up a notch and scale.
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