I sat down to watch the finale of my favorite sci-fi series on a recent Sunday evening when I discovered that I had been locked out of my TV streaming service. After struggling to find a solution online, I fired off a tweet asking the company for help. The company responded a few minutes later: "I'm so sorry you're having trouble connecting to your account -- DM us your phone number, and we'll have a customer service representative call you back soon." I DMed my number, and asked, "Why can't you just help me here? And how long will it take to get a call back?"
No response.
After 10 minutes, I gave up and just called them (my least favorite way of getting help). I waded through a complex phone menu, then waited on hold for 20 minutes before finally getting through. Though the representative was very nice and resolved my issue quickly, it was too late -- I was incredibly upset that I'd wasted almost an hour of my Sunday evening for a pretty simple issue. I didn't care how sorry the company was, or how friendly the agent was when I eventually got through. I especially didn't care for hearing "your call is very important to us" every two minutes as my evening dragged on. I just wanted my problem solved quickly and easily, and ideally without having to actually speak to anyone. The same holds true for countless others today. Welcome to the era of the bullshit-proof consumer.
Almost anything is now possible at the touch of a button -- ordering a taxi, controlling your home, running your business or even finding true love (or whatever kind of love you're looking for). But, customer service has fallen behind. Inspired by the Zappos model (phone anytime and speak instantly to a highly motivated customer service agent), many brands started training their agents to deliver the best possible service; to throw away the script and to be human, emotive and caring. But, maintaining this level of service at a large scale is expensive -- so expensive that the same brands began to make it increasingly difficult for consumers to actually speak to the agents they'd trained so intensely. Phone numbers became buried deep in websites, and phone menus were designed to encourage people to give up before they actually got through to anyone.
Read the full article.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/320202/
It might seem like a good idea to use email to resolve customer issues or to simply solve customer issues wherever they find you. It’s simple. It’s cost-saving. But you know what else it is? Messy and risky. Messy, because your communications with customers are all over the place. There’s not a single, unified platform to manage your customers. Risky, because you can easily overlook customers’ messages from email. While it may be unintentional, you are more likely to neglect your customer issues and lose them, which isn’t exactly good for business. Enter customer service software.
https://mopinion.com/best-customer-service-software/
Have you ever asked a user of your product how they like it, and had them tell you it’s fantastic, super easy to use, and they love it?
I bet it made you feel great didn’t it?
Well… bad news… that kind of feedback sucks, and hearing it does nothing for you besides making you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
In order to get feedback you can actually use to build a better product, you need to know the right questions to ask, and the right answers to look for.
https://usabilityhour.com/user-feedback/
Analyzing your website can give you many insights into what your customers like or don’t like. But sometimes it’s not enough. Wouldn’t it be better if you could just ask them and get straight answers from them?
https://www.optimonk.com/blog/15-ways-e-commerce-websites-get-customer-feedback/#.W2g6etgzZmB/
New research from NewVoiceMedia shows there are significant gaps between customer preferences and reality. This means many companies are missing out on opportunities to deliver a better level of service, especially through customer support centers where using new technology could not only help improve the overall customer experience, but also help in holding onto existing customers, which leads to more business and, ideally, word-of-mouth referrals.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2018/01/14/is-your-customer-support-killing-your-business/
Data is the secret ingredient to an online sellers’ sustained success.
Every business has access to data—but it’s what you do with it that sets you aside from the rest. The data from customer experience, in particular, has come to the fore of every business in recent years. It acts as the foundation of customer success and loyalty because it can transform the service you offer.
But the question is, which metrics will extract the most valuable data for your support team?
https://www.business2community.com/brandviews/xsellco/4-customer-support-metrics-drive-growth-01965701#w1RKbJBCr6m263ap.97/
