Are you leveraging technology to enhance your customer engagement? Many tech resources are available that allow you to serve your customers better. Beyond service, these tools also inform your business decisions with data. How consumers interact with businesses have changed. People expect fast, customized communication more than ever. How have you changed your business practices as a result? Read on to learn more about how tech can help, and why using it to support your customers should be explored.
How Tech Can Improve Your Customers’ Experience
Your customers want to feel heard. Rather than pay for an around-the-clock support staff, there are automated tools that allow you to offer quality, timely responses.
Bot platforms, such as Bot Engine, provide chat functionality to answer customer inquiries. And when customers get timely answers to their questions, they may be more willing to act. If a website visitor wants to know more about a specific product, they don’t want to wait days for a response. Without a quick response, they’re likely to go elsewhere. Beyond immediate support, consider how consumers make purchase decisions. Expectations of instant gratification and shifting attention spans affect how people buy, so you need to share the right message at the right time.
Intercom provides bot messaging, in addition to customer segmentation and multi-channel functionality. You can better target your messaging depending on the customer you’re speaking to, and what channel they’re using (E.G. email vs. social media).
Omnistar is a platform that allows real-time customer feedback, allowing you to identify customer service issues, as well as your most loyal customers. Automatic feedback tools can help increase customer retention, reviews and referrals.
Today’s Customer Engagement Trends
Technology has shifted consumers’ expectations. Consumers want a high-level of personalization at every touchpoint. They need to feel like their exact request or challenge is being met. So your engagement with them needs to be omnichannel. This creates a seamless interaction for each person, whether on mobile, in-store or elsewhere.
Zendesk, a platform that focuses on customer experience and combines several customer-focused tools. This includes a customer knowledge base, chat & call-center support, campaigns, and analytics. It’s a robust customer relationship management (CRM) platform that’s well known in the customer service industry.
Seek Constant Feedback & Adjust Over Time
Using technology, you can make data-based decisions. In the past, business owners had to rely on what the customer said via feedback forms & surveys. Now it’s possible to view behaviors and real-time data with the tools listed above, among others. For example, the Zendesk dashboard contains metrics on support tickets, customer activity, and satisfaction. Intercom allows A/B testing with customer messages so you can track the performance of one message vs. another. The more successful message “wins” and you are better informed for future communications. And data from actual customer inquiries can be used to create more helpful self-serve materials, such as FAQs and product information. Have a full view of the customer journey, and build your support system based on specific pain points.
Implementing engagement resources is not only for big companies, it’s a practice that any business can leverage to improve its customers’ experience. Start with research to see what’s best suited to your way of doing business, as many of the available tools offer similar features.
Technology provides insights into your customers’ behavior. It also helps provide more meaningful interaction. What engagement resources have you tried, and what are your concerns about getting started? Let us know — we’d love to hear your thoughts.