Customer demands and competition from other brands are increasing every day. Because of the overwhelming number of alternatives available to them, modern customers are not shying away from demanding excellent customer service. A poor or inconvenient customer experience will have them taking their business elsewhere.
Many brands have caught on, though, and are providing a generally positive experience to their customers — so what comes next? How does one brand differentiate its CX from the pack? One word: convenience.
We’ve seen incredible strides in customer convenience strategies from companies like UNTUCKit, as one example. Looking for a way to provide more meaningful responses, rooted in customer insights, UNTUCKit developed several tried and true CX strategies. The outcomes of these strategies are impressive to say the least. They saw reduced average handle time, an increase in agent productivity, and an overall more convenient customer experience.
Wondering how your company can make a real impact on your customers journey (furry or otherwise) by putting customer convenience first? Here are five strategies to get you started.
Tools for Creating a Convenient Customer Experience
Powerhouses like the Kustomer CRM make creating a cohesive, convenient customer experience easier than ever. Let’s talk about some of our favorite ways to increase efficiency and satisfaction throughout the customer journey.
Hyper-Personalization
According to a Kustomer survey of 2,000 Americans, 67% of consumers expect retailers to know them and personalize how they interact. The steps to implementing this customization are simple: know your customers, meet them where they are, and use AI to interact more intelligently. A true CX strategy should ensure that every touchpoint with every customer should be rooted in empathy and respect. In a world of chatbots and dynamic data, it’s important that the implementation of personalization is strategic. Always avoid robotic and ingenuine interactions that can leave customers feeling undervalued.
A great hyper-personalization strategy that directly benefits customer convenience is applying the rule of ‘same customer, same agent.’ Interactions with agents are the most direct route to fostering long-term relationships. If customers have to re-explain issues to their agents, which nearly 50% of customers say they’ve had to do, they could get frustrated and leave for a competitor. By leveraging automation within your CRM to connect agents and customers throughout the customer journey, you can engage your customers and make them feel appreciated.
The benefits of hyper-personalization include:
- Better retention
- Increasing sales
- More conversions
- Long-term loyalty
- In-depth data
Omnichannel Support
Omnichannel support is providing consistent service across communication channels that allow one conversation to start where the other ends, no matter what channel a customer or agent is on (not to be confused with multichannel support). 79% of consumers report getting frustrated when they can’t contact customer service through their preferred medium or platform.
We live in a world of instant gratification. How can companies look ahead to the future of customer service? How can you prepare for what new channels lie ahead? Companies with the most adaptive and convenient customer experience provide support on even the most up-and-coming channels. In fact, 52% of organizations are preparing to be able to service customers via live video over the next three years.
The benefits of omnichannel support reach far beyond immediate customer interactions. Omnichannel customer support gives you the ability to harness your customer data to deliver contextual support. Systems such as an omnichannel customer experience CRM can help unify data and make it easily accessible for your support team across your channels, which in turn can help enable omnichannel support.
Other benefits of providing omnichannel support include:
- Preventing agent collision
- Building loyalty and lifetime value
Proactive Support
Proactive support allows brands to solve issues before customers are able to reach out. The goal with proactive customer support is to get ahead of potential issues by reaching out to customers, offering self-learning resources, and being honest when something goes wrong.
This strategy goes back to the ever-important ability to personalize the customer experience. An example of proactive support that aids convenience throughout the customer experience is the use of anticipatory responses. Here, collected data from previous customer issues and interactions can be used to identify common issues and brands can develop resources specifically to cater to those problems. This proactive response allows customers to get answers to their questions with little to no wait time.
Proactive support is a win-win. The benefits include:
- Increasing customer loyalty
- Improving CSAT scores
- Increasing sales
Increased Availability
Much like omnichannel support, establishing a culture of increased availability to your customers can reap countless rewards. This applies to platform and time availability. No matter the location or time that a customer needs help, there should always be an option for them. Though seemingly straightforward, this tactic can make all the difference in your CX strategy.
A simple way to increase availability without straining your support team is the addition of an AI-powered chat feature. This CRM-backed solution can be pre-populated with answers to your customers’ most frequently asked questions. Your chatbot can provide answers immediately, leaving your agents free to handle more intricate, specific inquiries.
Benefits of increased availability include:
- Improving customer satisfaction
Self-Service Tools
The use of self-service tools has become so popular with customers that recent research shows that 88% of consumers expect brands to now offer at least one self-service option. Another great convenient customer experience tactic, self-service tools allow customers to find the information and solutions they need without the need to contact the company. Self-service empowers customers to find answers, how-to tutorials and other support content without ever having to interact with agents.
FAQ pages are an example of an effective self-service tool. FAQ pages not only provide answers to common questions, they can also showcase company expertise, act as a powerful SEO tool, lead to higher conversions, decrease call volume and organize content in a way that improves site navigation. When built right, this seemingly simple page can encourage customers to problem-solve for themselves.
The use of self-service tools comes with benefits like:
- Increasing customer satisfaction
- Reducing stress on agents
- Improving predictive analysis
Digital CX Opportunities with Kustomer
Customer habits and expectations are changing every day. In this digital-first world, it’s essential to have the right tools to keep up. The Kustomer CRM provides the proactive, baked-in convenience that is necessary for today’s customer experience. Learn more about CX in a digital world with Kustomer.
