New year’s mark new beginnings. A fresh start to learn from mistakes in 2021 and do that much better in 2022. In areas of business, this is an especially good time to revisit your customer service plan. Customers are the backbone of any business, and your customer experience (CX) should reflect that.
Ask yourself – “How can we better support our customers this year?”
24/7 Support
A customer who must wait over a few minutes on hold will not remain a customer for long. Ensuring they have some way to get in touch with you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is essential to forging an experience that will keep that customer for life. It doesn’t have to mean paying agents to be available 24/7 either. A mixture of live and automated technology keeps the cost where you need it, without sacrificing CX.
Specially Trained Agents
Having someone available to answer customer questions is great, but that isn’t worth much without proper training. Investing time into customer service training will reduce client turnover and increase customer loyalty. This isn’t a part of your CX plan to skimp on. For the time-crunched, we’ve found that a Learning Management System (LMS) is the new “tool we can’t live without”. We like TalentLMS. The cloud-based solution allows you to easily assemble training materials and videos into a curriculum that new staff can access online. This solution helps to solve the problems associated with staff turnover and repeated training demands.
Live & Automated Communication
Keeping costs low is important for a lot of businesses, most likely yours as well. A great way to do that, while keeping your CX top of mind, is to include offerings like chatbots, voicebots, and Virtual Assistant solutions. These communications include phone, SMS, webchat, and social media. Any of those can be automated with AI or run by a trained live agent. They’re a great low-cost way of staying available, even when your agents are not. While we’ve seen some adoption by some of the larger retail companies, many government agencies and small to medium-sized businesses have yet to adopt this technology.
Outbound Services
Being available for inbound customer contacts is a priority for all CX plans but having an outbound plan can set you apart. Outbound can mean many different things, like following up with customers to ensure satisfaction, reaching out to them when something is in stock, or simply letting them know important information as soon as it’s available. Just like your inbound CX, outbound can be a combination of automated technology and live agents.
We’ve found that a blend of the right technology and live agents will result in a 2022 CX plan that will rival all your past years. Setting up something like this can feel daunting, especially if you have never done this before. Here at DiRAD, we have over 35 years of experience in the CX space and the flexibility to get what you need accomplished.