Today, customer experience is what makes a brand stand out the most. As competition gets fiercer and economic uncertainty becomes unpredictable, designing a experience that meets the current needs of customers is essential to driving business success.
So what can companies do to ensure an exceptional customer experience?
Here are the highlights of their conversation and specific tactics to include in your customer service strategy to deliver personalization and empathy.
Why is customization important?
Personalization, at its most basic level, is the practice of using customer information for personalized interaction, in line with their preferences and needs.
Selon une étude d’Accenture, 75 % des consommateurs sont plus enclins à acheter auprès d’une marque lorsqu’ils sont reconnus. Qu’on se souvient d’eux ou qu’ils reçoivent des recommandations pertinentes.
You may be wondering why personalization is so important.
The answer is simpler than you think: customers can't help but feel attached to an experience or product created especially for them.
Therefore, good personalization can lead to greater customer retention. This can increase company profits by up to 70%, according to Gartner.
Surprisingly, 69% of consumers want a personalized experience. However, less than 50% of brands actually provide it, according to Internet Retailing.
Qu’attend donc réellement les clients ?
A one-way street to customer expectations
First, customers expect companies to act on their data to improve their experience.
Indeed, they can't stand having to repeat things over and over again. Nothing is worse than being transferred from one agent to another and having to repeat the same story, right?
And by knowing their information, service, recommendations and offers are based on their real needs. This streamlines communication.
According to a US study, 76% of respondents expect some type of personalization, including interactions via their preferred contact channel. For example, personalization based on their account type or status, or recommendations based on their purchase or search history, among others.
Let's get to work: 4 ways to personalize the experience
Personalization must be implemented at every stage of the customer journey, from marketing offers to sales cycles to customer service quality.
Let's look at some tactics you can start implementing to better connect with your customers.
1. Empathy and instant resolution as fundamental pillars
In the context of customer experience, empathy is related to designing a strategy to help customers achieve their goals as effectively as possible by understanding their current situation or context.
For example, it's critical that service agents have each person's information at hand when they call for help. In addition to saving time for the company, consumers feel that the brand knows them and understands their needs.
In reality, the most important thing is to provide convenient services to make the customer's life easier. In fact, according to Forrester, 73% of customers say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide good service.
Some concrete examples of empathy and problem solving:
- Have self-service options that include FAQs, such as chatbots or knowledge bases. This helps speed up the process by clarifying simple questions.
- Generation of simple tickets.
- If you have a callbot, it means you can provide transactional responses that connect to your data immediately.
2. Offer an omnichannel service
The rise of new social media and messaging apps is not limited to social contact. It has also unlocked enormous potential to change the way consumers interact with brands.
Being omnichannel means being able to provide the same experience across all channels. And no matter which touchpoint a customer chooses to communicate with.
Related article: Omnichannel customer service: Why is it important?
This should not limit the development of channel-specific features, such as the use of multimedia or emojis. Instead, it means that the tone, problem-solving capabilities and offerings are the same on each.
3. Data and analysis
One of the most important aspects of personalization is knowing your customers. Managing and interpreting data is key to understanding customers and identifying opportunities.
To manage this data and apply it properly, several technologies can be leveraged. For example, many companies are integrating customer service feedback and chat solutions with CRM tools.
The key is to implement tools that include metrics management systems to use this information to improve the experience.
Type of data to be considered:
- Les données de base : quels appareils ils utilisent ? Leur géolocalisation ? Si c’est la première fois qu’ils interagissent avec la marque ou non ?
- Activity Data: What they do on your site or with your product, how long they spend there, pages visited, click-through activity, ads or offers they view, types of products they have previously purchased, etc.
- Behavioral data: A combination of the previous two categories, in order to draw more in-depth conclusions. What type of content or products do they prefer? What channels do they typically use to communicate with your company? Do they use self-service channels?
4. AI and predictive technology
We've already talked about the growing demand for digital channels. Another great benefit is that they allow for simple communication automation, and with this trend, we are seeing the growing use of callbots within the market.
Some of these are simpler, with rigid information flows, and others are enhanced with AI. The latter are able to communicate naturally with consumers and provide a more personalized experience.
Related article: How AI and callbots are helping to improve the customer experience.
In summary
Simply put, customers expect to be treated according to their needs and preferences. They expect agents to be aware of their past behaviors and to personalize the service and overall experience based on that.
If you'd like to learn more about how customer service solutions can help you personalize the experience, schedule an appointment with one of our representatives directly on our Locuta site.
