Digital transformation has been a buzzword for decades, but the COVID pandemic increased the need for companies to adopt a digital-first mindset. Now, brands must understand not only their customers' wants and needs but also their customers' experiences at every point of interaction.
Digital solutions are able to make that happen.
So how can businesses ensure they're delivering the best customer service in this digital-first world?
The following three pillars form a great underpinning for positive customer experiences.
1. Building a Consistent Presence for Your Customers Across All Channels
Customers today use a variety of digital channels—messaging, social media, email, chat, and more—in their everyday life. The first step toward improving their experience is to identify the channels your customers use most frequently.
You can ask customers via surveys, you can ask your customer service team, or you can conduct some quick sampling of major social networks for mentions of your brand name.
Think beyond the traditional channels, too. For example, businesses can analyze notes taken at the point of sale by employees for common topics and themes. Those notes can provide key information that the provider may not obtain through something like surveys or a chat tool.
Once you've figured out which channels your customers prefer, integrate those channels into the care strategy you already use. Doing so not only helps maintain a consistent message and brand voice across all customer care interactions but also connects your customers with the experts at your company who can most efficiently handle their questions.
Here's an example: Early in the pandemic, European Wax Center realized a lot of its customers used Instagram, but it wasn't supporting customer care on that channel at the time. So the company integrated Instagram DMs into its digital care solution and directed its contact center team to respond the same way they did to emails or SMS. The company was able to manage a major spike in support volume without increasing its customer service staff at a critical time for the brand.
A personal touch is always important in customer interactions. Don't just meet customers where they are; make them feel that they're talking to a real person who cares about them and understands their needs. Use your software to track conversation sentiment across all channels—even voice!
Omnichannel analytics are indispensable for today's care centers and marketing operations.
2. Finding Out What Your Customers Are Feeling—And Why
Most companies already know that tracking customer sentiment is a good thing. People (and our purchasing decisions!) are often driven by emotion, so understanding that emotion is vital both to converting prospects and retaining customers.
But you can go even further. Many brands look only for keywords that express sentiment—I'm mad at this company, I'm happy, etc.—without looking into the why behind the sentiment.
Knowing that a customer is upset is important, but understanding the root cause of that sentiment allows you to resolve customer friction at its source before it results in an inbound contact.
Start by tackling customer conversations from a root cause-analysis approach. Look beyond the words themselves to figure out the why: "I'm mad at this company because their chat function has been down for weeks," or "I'm happy since the company brought back my favorite type of product."
Conversations between you and your customers aren't the only places to track sentiment. Customers often use social channels to speak both with you and about you, and it's important to monitor both types of conversations.
For example, some companies have entire subreddits on Reddit. That's not a platform where a brand would normally play, but employees and frequent customers of the brand have conversations there every day.