Companies create customer experience strategies in boardrooms, but putting them into practice is a different story. Customer experience, especially the online and on-site experience, is becoming increasingly important.
Does your organization execute customer service in a flawless, exceptional manner? It’s unlikely you’ve said yes – if you have, congratulations! It’s more likely that you’ve recognized opportunities within your organization to improve upon the customer experience.
Customers who choose to contact you about a negative experience have three core needs. They want to:
A customer reaching out to you because of a negative experience (real or perceived) should be recognized as an opportunity to preserve brand reputation, develop a lifelong customer relationship and preserve your share of the customer wallet spend.
1. Make it easy to give feedback
Do you provide a toll free number for customers to contact you? Do you have office hours that are greater than 9:00am to 5:00pm Monday to Friday? Do you offer an ability to connect with your company via phone, chat, web comment or e-mail? You customers want access to you by their chosen means and at their chosen times. This is customer convenience and consumers link this to respect. Are you limiting this exposure and thus reducing your effectiveness to resolve issues and build brand champion customers?
2. Listen
Understand what customers are experiencing. Being passionate about speaking to your customers is important but it’s not enough. Showing respect for your customer means working with them in convenient ways. And make sure that all representatives working with your customers respond to them using your brand’s “voice.”
3. Follow through
Even the most passionate customer centric culture will fail to impress your customers if they can’t reach you or are faced with unnecessary delays or frustrating processes. Waiting in queue on the phone or receiving e-mail responses past 48 hours erodes good will. You must assess if you’re resources are sufficient to match the communication demand and perhaps seek an external partner to help you engage your customers more timely and across channels. Focus on building and responding quickly and effectively. First time resolution should be a goal for everyone.
4. Consider Outsourcing
Managing a contact center is often outside a brand’s core competency. A contact center is a great option – if you find the right partner. Things to look for in your outsourcing partner include hours of operation, ability to quickly scale when demand increases, responding in your brand voice, and building trust that teams resolve issues quickly and effectively.
As you look to grow your company and build brand loyalty, you need customers who actively advocate for your brand. Clearly one component of this strategy is to have a robust communications network that allows you to engage customers, correct mistakes, answer questions and satisfy your customers inquiries.
If you would like more information about Market Force Information’s contact center capabilities, please schedule a briefing with us and we will walk you through our offering for managing your calls, web comments, and social media to create an exceptional brand experience.