How To Start Integrating Digital Technologies Into Your Customer Experience Strategy – Part 1

Oct 192012
 

Over the last decade, almost every industry has been on a constant journey to a more digital way of working. Still continuing today, the sharp incline is likely to continue for several more years, as organisations become aware of what technologies are being developed and how they can be of use to both them and their customers.

Wherever you turn online, you will see information advising you to look at the different digital technologies available, particularly to improve the customer experience. They will tell you why social media is a must or that live chat seriously needs to be considered – and this information is great. We provide it ourselves and we believe it is a fantastic way for organisations to become aware of exactly what is available.

But what it does not do is offer advice on the wider topic of digital technologies and how you should go about integrating them into your organisation’s customer experience.

With this two-part series, that is exactly what we want to do, if not purely to give you a basic understanding of what is required when looking to make your customer experience as digital as it needs to be.

Understand what your audience actually wants

One of the problems seen with integrating digital technologies into the customer experience is that because of the choice available (and often the sense of urgency to move forward immediately), organisations often base their decisions on what others are doing or what they believe their customers want.

Just like any other new business process, however, a full and in-depth analysis of your target audience needs to be carried out to ensure you fully understand exactly what digital technologies they want to be able to utilise. The truth is you might just be surprised at your findings.

For example, social media is without doubt the resource of the moment and many organisations are being praised for their use of it within the customer experience. It can therefore be an obvious choice for others who have yet to implement it.

But what if your audience research discovered that your customers simply wanted a quicker way to interact and engage with you throughout the day? Again, social media can seem like the perfect solution – but what about live chat?

A much more structured tool, it allows for customers to speak to you directly when they are actually on your website. Whether they have a problem, a query or a complaint, they can talk to a customer service advisor instantly.

This is not to say that social media could not be useful – or should not be integrated within the customer experience at all – but that you have to understand your audience’s needs before you move forward integrating technologies.

Look at what resources you have available

Integrating digital technologies within your customer experience should have the overall aim of making the customer journey as simple and enjoyable as it can be. By doing so, to your target audience you will be seen as an efficient organisation who can deliver an experience on a variety of channels.

Without sufficient resources in place, however, this could be a perfect example of the swimming swan scenario – graceful above the water where everyone can see, but paddling furiously beneath the surface.

Although every piece of technology differs in its requirements, one of the most common reasons why they can be problematic for the organisation is that the difference between using them on a personal and a commercial level is not fully understood.

Take Twitter as an example. On a personal basis, you may update it half a dozen times throughout the day, talking to your few hundred followers and perhaps tweeting about a research study or news article you have come across. You are fully responsible for the content included within each tweet and because it is a personal account, there are no real expectations for you to respond to other tweets immediately (or even at all).

When you are using Twitter commercially, your approach needs to change drastically. Customers expect to see certain information from you. They have expectations on response times and the quality of the response. For example, if they have a complaint, you might think redirecting them to your customer service’s complaint management team is a sufficient response, but this defeats the object of using social media in the first place. You do not have to necessarily deal with the complaint on the platform, but you need to do as much as you can to help satisfy the frustrated customer.

The activity on the account also needs to be taken into consideration. On a personal level, you are unlikely to be receiving hundreds of tweets every day – but this could be exactly what you receive when using Twitter on a commercial basis.

And if it was the case, do you have the staff to be able to handle the workload? For smaller organisations, a small team may be able to integrate the work within their existing duties at the start, but even if it only requires the equivalent of one hour of work throughout the day per employee, this could mean relieving them of some other duties to be able to carry it out (subsequently increasing the amount of resources you need to have available).

Be aware of the financial implication / ROI

Linked in to the above point is the financial implication of utilising digital technologies and the return on investment you are likely to see.

Simply put, digital technologies within the customer experience should not be thought of as sales channels. Yes, they can enhance your sales process and improve figures, but their focus needs to be on improving the customer’s experience with your company. It is for this reason why defining the ROI can be difficult if you are trying to justify it financially.

Although a ROI can be defined, it has to consider a variety of aspects and enough research must be carried out to understand the initial and future benefits of the technologies.

Take live chat as an example. EConsultancy recently produced a blog post that looked at the success Sky have seen by integrating live chat within their website. Discussing various aspects, one of the most notable points was that they suggested live chat was not any more efficient than a traditional telephone call, as the online conversations often lasted longer.

However, what they did say was that not only could staff deal with more than one customer at once using live chat, but because they could provide more information (images, links to certain website pages, etc), they could ensure the customer better understood the answer to their question, meaning they were less likely to contact customer service in the future.

Therefore, although Sky have not saved any money initially by implementing live chat, it is expected that the number of calls to their customer service centre (which currently stands at just under one million every week) will reduce significantly as customers are better educated around the products and services available to them.

The satisfaction of customers should always come first when developing the customer experience, but it is understandable that an awareness of the financial implications and the return on any investment needs to be had.

Every organisation’s needs will differ, but the most important point to note is that you are unlikely to be able to produce an accurate potential ROI with digital technologies in terms of finances. Instead, you need to look at the benefits of improved customer satisfaction and how you can measure the success of the customer experience based on factors such as this.

It might not be a particularly traditional way of working, but the benefits could be just as clear – if your customer experience means customer satisfaction levels increase considerably, it is highly likely that your customers become brand advocates and positively recommend your company, which in turn could have a significant impact on sales.

The second part of this series will be published next Tuesday, 23rd October . Subscribe to the blog by entering your e-mail address into the box in the sidebar to receive the next post straight to your inbox.

Is Social Media Engagement Wiping Out The Need For E-mail Communication With Your Customers?

Aug 312012
 

Today, having an e-mail address is seen as being just as much of a necessity as having a mobile phone, if not more so. A fast and efficient way to communicate on both a personal and commercial level, e-mail has become one of the most dominant communication methods we have ever been able to utilise.

However, a study in July found that only 20% of e-mails sent from organisations were opened by customers. Whilst it has to be considered that a certain number of the e-mail addresses in the study were no longer in use and that some organisations have an incorrect our outdated approach to e-mail communication, the impact of social media engagement also has to be questioned.

When e-mailing first started to be used properly in a commercial manner, it was seen by many as a fantastic communication channel. Allowing you to reach out to an unlimited amount of customers or prospects without any major investment being required, you could put your company’s messaging directly into the inboxes of your target audience.

Furthermore, e-mail fast became the preferred communication channel for many consumers. It allowed them to speak directly to an organisation in a form where they could think about what they wanted to say, express their thoughts in the most suitable way and receive a similar styled-response back. The reply was not going to be instantaneous, but that was not seen as a huge problem at the time.

With the popularity of social media growing considerably and organisations somewhat expected to have a customer service presence on the major networks, there seems to have been a shift in priorities recently.

Consumers often now want quick responses. Length is not something that is overly concerning, but the speed in which they receive communication is, making social platforms such as Twitter fantastic resources to utilise.

The issue is that the likes of Twitter are not great for a lot of business communication with your target audience. Not just in the sense that everything is public, but that you are restricted in so many ways, from the quality of your communications through to the inability to include any form of visuals (images and videos can be attached to tweets, but they are done so through links, which relies on a customer having to click through to see them).

With more and more organisations utilising social media to meet their customer engagement requirements, e-mail could very well become an almost redundant communication method in the coming years, much to the detriment of organisations.

But that does not have to be the way. Social media might be the ‘buzz’ of the moment and it is likely that it actually continues to be an integral part of your customer service model well into the future, but there must be some effort to re-engage customers with e-mail, purely because of its benefits.

E-mail allows for you to offer a more personal touch to your communication, addressing individual matters that neither you or the customer wish to be made public. It gives you the opportunity to provide a full and clear response, as well as time to liaise with the relevant individuals within your organisation to ensure the most suitable reply is delivered.

Social media is fast-paced. It is great for instant communication and its potential can be harnessed in a variety of ways, from delivering a fantastic level of customer service through to increasing sales via the regular promotion of your products or services.

But it is not e-mail. You only have limited characters to use in your messaging. You cannot generally speak to an individual, but have to talk to an audience instead. Most communication is public and your responses to any customer comments need to be quick, else you risk a backlash from your audience (and when speed is seen as being more of a necessity than quality, it can easily have an impact on your brand’s reputation).

The communication industry is very much like the music industry. Options come and go, some are popular and some die out quickly. Others are favourable for years, eventually going the journey and seemingly fading into obscurity as more modern options become available and chosen more regularly.

It would be a crying shame if e-mail was one of these options to effectively become extinct, particularly in a commercial sense. With a whole host of benefits, you might be investing heavily in social media at the moment, but you really need to look at e-mail – and in the future, other communication channels you know work and which have always been useful for customer service - ensuring you can continue to capitalise on such a beneficial resource.

How To Ensure Technology And The Customer Experience Work Perfectly Together

Aug 212012
 

Creating and implementing an effective customer experience is a necessity, but it is also a challenge. With customer expectations continually developing and more and more channels needing to be utilised, the customer experience today is a vast industry that requires extensive knowledge and experience to benefit from fully.

As with everything, problems can regularly be faced. Of all of them, one of the most notable is the integration of technology within the customer experience. Something that is fast becoming crucial, difficulties arise at numerous points and to varying degrees, from the fact that technology may not be easy to benefit from on a commercial level at first through to it potentially meaning a complete overhaul of the customer experience to ensure its integration.

And it is this last point that we want to focus on today, as it can be a problem that is easily overcome if two key points are understood at the initial development stage of the customer experience.

Your customer experience does not need to encompass everything…

One of the most common misconceptions about the customer experience is that customers want organisations to be active on all possible channels. From dozens of social media platforms through to a full mobile experience, the simple fact is for most organisations, it is almost an impossibility to have an effective presence on more than a handful of different channels.

And generally speaking, customers understand this and it goes back to the basics of quality being more important than quantity.

Customers want you to engage with them and they want to be able to access your products, services or general help whenever they want. At the current moment in time, that generally means having an active social media presence and a mobile-friendly website as a bare minimum – but that does not mean there is not a whole host of other technologies, channels and resources that you could utilise.

You have to understand that from the moment you start to develop your customer experience, there are always going to be aspects you simply cannot consider.

For example, social media and mobile technology might be the channels of the minute, but things like live chat are fast gaining traction. There is no doubt it would be worthwhile considering it within your customer experience, but it all depends on your resources – utilising it from the start would be fantastic, but if it is going to result in nothing more than a half-hearted attempt, it should be put to one side until more resources are available to dedicate to it.

…but it needs to have room for growth

Just because your customer experience does not have to encompass every possible channel, that is not to say there should not be room for future development, expansion or growth.

As with many strategies in today’s ‘digital age’, the requirements of the customer experience are continually changing. Although it is fantastic to have a basic strategy that you can deliver to your target audience based around a number of highly effective channels, it is crucial the strategy is not created in a way that is ‘set in stone’.

The customer experience as a whole across all organisations and industries is expansive. It is ever-growing and the experience offered today is unlikely to be similar to that offered in five years (or in some cases, in 12 month’s).

Your messaging should be unified across every channel you utilise; traditional or modern, offline or online and technology is always going to play an integral part in its delivery. Although this can appear to cause problems initially, this should only be the case if you do not understand these two key points at the development stage.

A customer experience is a necessity and although you need to understand that it is going to have to incorporate technology moving forward, that is not to say you have to integrate every technology channel possible from the off. As long as you have clear and concise plans to analyse and integrate new channels whenever the need arises and when suitable resources are available, the customer experience should be as effective as it can possibly be.

Does Poor Spelling And Grammar Actually Impact Upon Great Customer Service?

Aug 172012
 

Last week, we heard a story about a website owner who had a problem with their website’s hosting company. Contacting the company through their live chat system, the issue proved to be a small one and was resolved almost instantly.

Although leaving the conversation happy overall, the website owner felt a little dissatisfied with the hosting company, as the customer service representative appeared to have a loose command of English grammar.

There was nothing major in terms of spelling mistakes or ‘text speak’, but things such as poor comma placement and no real paragraph structure caused the problem. To some, these errors may not have been noticed, but the website owner in question found it slightly dissatisfying that the text they were reading was anything but perfect.

And this raises a few interesting questions.

For example, live chat is essentially just a form of instant messaging, something that was once used extensively on a personal basis. Spelling and grammar were never seen as being important. It was a relaxed, informal method of communication, but as it is now being used more on a commercial basis, should this approach still be taken?

Although we would generally say no, it is easy to understand why some believe it could be acceptable, especially when looking at other digital communication channels such as Twitter, where there is less of an onus on full and proper grammar.

But although they are two social communication platforms, they have some huge differences. The most notable of these differences is apparent when you understand that when you are using a customer service channel, you need to utilise it to the best of its – and your – ability.

With Twitter, you are restricted to 140 character messages, which means spelling and grammar are often disregarded in favour of getting the actual message across. And in this situation, it makes sense – a tweet that has a few ‘text speak’ words and abbreviations in it, but which gets the message across fully, is of more benefit than a grammatically correct tweet which only gets across half of the message.

It is a similar situation when you look at certain online and offline types of content. Whilst both blog posts and newsletters can be informal communication methods, for instance, typos or grammatical issues are easier to overlook in the former than they are in the latter.

That is not to say that blog posts should be littered with errors, but it shows that although there are similar platforms available, there is actually a huge difference between them in terms of the way they are seen by customers.

And when this is apparent, it can begin to impact on customer service. Perhaps not in a way that is completely detrimental, but at least in a way that makes the customer question the professionalism of the company they are dealing with.

In many instances, the importance of correct spelling and grammar is being lost as people continue to rely on digital technologies to communicate. We are seeing more and more words enter the dictionary that are modern abbreviations and although acceptable to a certain extent, particularly with younger generations, they are very often frowned upon by most others.

You do not have to have perfect spelling and grammar when delivering customer service every single time, but you do need to understand how your customers react to the messaging you provide on various channels – a tweet with several abbreviations is unlikely to be given a second glance, but as with the original scenario here, a live chat conversation that lacks some basic English language principles is likely to raise the occasional eyebrow at the very least.

How To Turn Your Complaining Customers Back Into Brand Advocates

Jul 312012
 

Any customer who has an issue with your organisation that results in them making a complaint is going to be angered or frustrated to some extent. The reason behind the complaint will depend on this level of anger or frustration, as late delivery of a DVD is going to be less of an issue than if money was removed from a bank account unknowingly. However, the fact is you are not going to get any happy complaining customers.

But this does not mean these customers always have to have a negative view of your brand. Yes, they may not think of you in the highest of ways when you are managing complaints from them, but that does not have to mean they cannot be returned back to their ‘state’ of being a content customer – if not a customer who goes on to be one of your best brand advocates.

And the ideology behind this is to deliver the best complaint management process you can. This whole process is often seen as a negative one with no real positive outcome for the organisation, but if customer complaints are handled in the right way, turning customers back into brand advocates is very much a possibility.

It is somewhat obvious to ensure you are doing your utmost to deliver a service or products that mean customers do not have to complain. However, on the understanding that you are never going to please your entire customer base, the process of turning a complaining customer back into a brand advocate starts the moment before they have even made contact with you.

The way these customers are going to become positive assets to your brand once again is to have a high level of satisfaction, so you need to make it as easy as possible for them to raise their issues with you. Whilst this often means having the ability to make a complaint on more than one or two different channels, it also means you have to be confident that you can effectively deal with the complaints on these channels and know what approach you need to take.

For instance, it is generally not advised to manage complaints on social media, as you have limited control over the complaint and particularly on public networks, it could prove to have a damaging, lasting impact upon your brand.

However, you should not ignore customers on these channels, as by doing this, you are almost guaranteed to dissatisfy them immensely. It might seem like a particularly small aspect on the surface, but it is imperative you reach out effectively to as many complaining customers on as many different channels as you possibly can, even if this means directing them back to the one channel you want to manage their complaints on.

What also needs to be taken into consideration here is efficiency. Complaining customers want their complaints resolved as quickly as possible, ideally as soon as they raise them. They do not want to have to wait weeks for a final response and they do not want to have to continually chase the organisation up – the more they have to do this, the more dissatisfied they become.

You therefore need to take the lead as much as possible. Directing customers to specific channels. Following up on their complaints. Doing as much as you can to resolve them as quickly as possible.

Sometimes, this could be something relatively simple such as having the right customer complaints software in place to allow for the quick and easy recording of all complaint details. Other times, however, it could be something more intensive, such as having to take the time out to focus solely on resolving – or at least progressing – one individual complaint.

The importance of the right approach must also never be forgotten. Customers have expectations when it comes to how they will be spoken to and interacted with and you need to be able to meet these expectations at all times throughout the complaint process.

Take a customer who complains in store as an example. You need to remain professional to showcase your employee’s ability to manage complaints to those customers nearby and you need to handle the complaint in a particularly in-depth, professional and often formal way.

When you are using social media, you usually only have a few characters to use in every response, but customers understand this and therefore expect short, sharp responses – when there is no need for that (such as in this situation of complaining in store), the default approach of professionalism and formality should always be taken.

Most customers do not want to complain. They want to be satisfied with your brand and they want to have the best experience they can. Complaints are almost always only a last resort and therefore if you can understand this, it becomes clear that although they can sometimes be particularly difficult to deal with, they do not mean customers will have no future dealings with your organisation.

The truth is if you can handle their complaint in the most efficient and effective way possible, providing them with a suitable solution, you will naturally be doing your utmost to return your customers to brand advocate status, ensuring they once again have a positive impact on your organisation.

How Integral Do You See Live Chat To The Success Of Your Future Customer Service Model?

Jul 032012
 

One topic we have mentioned in several blog posts recently is the challenges of delivering customer service digitally.

We agree, like most people within the sector, that this is certainly the way forward, but most of the discussions around this topic are based almost solely on social media.

However, what many people fail to realise is that a digital customer service model does not have to revolve around social media, as there are various other possibilities.

And live chat is the perfect example.

A resource that essentially bridges the gap between telephone and e-mail, it allows for your customers to contact you directly by way of an instant messaging tool integrated within your website.

Giving customers the ability to ask questions about your products or services without having to contact a call centre, which can be costly or send an e-mail and wait what could be several hours for a reply, live chat has been in use for several years now, but has often been overlooked due to the over fascination with social media.

However, according to the recent annual BoldChat Live Chat Effectiveness report by LogMeIn and the e-tailing group, one in five online shoppers in the UK and US prefer live chat to all other communication methods.

The report also revealed that fans of live chat generally have higher than average per household incomes and spend more online, per annum, than the average shopper, making them extremely valuable customers.

So with this information and the discussions that have taken place around social media, how much of an integral part should live chat play to your future customer service model?

Whilst our view of social media and customer service is that although it generates a lot of interest, it simply cannot be used effectively at the moment, our thoughts around live chat are considerably different. Where possible, organisations should be looking to implement a live chat system into their customer service strategy as soon possible, for various reasons.

Take the fact that, in essence, it does not require any major retraining of staff, except for them to be taught how the instant messaging system actually works (which when you consider many follow the same format as well-known and much used instant messaging platforms such as Facebook’s integrated system and the ever popular MSN Messenger, it should not require any major investment).

Remember, live chat can be just another way of delivering your standard customer service messaging and the actual conversations staff have with customers should not be any different to those taking place via telephone or e-mail.

Furthermore, as the resource is a direct method of communication, there should be no problems with messages being missed or customers not being able to fully express themselves. As mentioned above, live chat should, in theory, simply offer a text-based version of the experience the customer would have had should they have called the company or e-mailed them instead.

What is more, live chat is not a public platform. All interactions are kept purely between the organisation and the customer, not only increasing the confidence of the customer when making contact to discuss a problem, but ensuring a brand’s reputation is not tarnished due to what could be one wrong comment broadcast to millions.

And arguably most importantly of all, live chat software is available now. Suitable for organisations of all sizes, the software can be purchased and integrated into your existing website and customer service model without any development or major configurations needing to take place.

A digital customer service model is always going to be the next step forward, but it has to be remembered that social media is not the only option available and for many, live chat could prove to be the perfect solution to their current – and on-going – digital customer service needs.

3 Problems You Risk Facing If You Fail To Deliver Customer Service Via Social Media Effectively

Jun 152012
 

As we discussed recently, a multi-channel customer service model is a must. Whilst you may once have been able to communicate with your customers through one or two different channels, today’s consumers want to have the ability to contact you how they want, not how you want them to.

With the extensive development of social media in recent years, it has proven to be a fantastic way to do just that. With millions of people worldwide using the likes of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, not only do these platforms allow customers to contact you, but they give you the ability to communicate directly with them on various levels.

The problem that is so often seen at the moment with social media, however, is that it is not being used in the most effective way possible, particularly when it comes to customer service. Still being thought of simply as an online tool rather than a customer service resource, the latter is definitely a possibility, but it requires for a complete change of thought.

And if that does not happen, there are three main problems you are likely to encounter:

1. Damaged customer relations

One of the most common points organisations forget about social media is that it is called that for a reason – you need to be social. You need to communicate on a two-way basis and not simply talk directly to your customers.

Being social may be obvious on a personal level, but it still rings true in a professional, commercial sense and when this does not happen, customer relations are damaged.

Consumers will adore the fact that you have a presence on a social network that they are active on. In recent times it has almost become a requirement for organisations to be so open that their customers can find out as much about them as possible. They still want to spend their money as much as ever, but they want to be certain that the money they do spend is done so with the right company.

A happy customer is a customer who is engaged and interacted with. Setting up a social media account and using it incorrectly – such as not using it at all – could be all it takes to make a customer unhappy and damage the relationship you have with them.

2. Negative brand reputation

As mentioned above, to use social media effectively, you need to use it to engage with your target audience. You need to speak to them and you need to interact with them.

What you should not do is sell to them. You should not constantly promote your products or services and you should not deliver continuous advertising or marketing messaging.

Whilst social media is a versatile resource and beneficial for both customer service and sales, it is also a platform from which new and old customers alike can make a decision based upon what they see.

Use your social media accounts to only promote your products or do not update it regularly enough and anyone looking at it could have a negative view of your company – all they will see is the occasional piece of sales talk and no user interaction. For all they know, this could be a direct reflection of your company as a whole.

It might seem obvious in conversation, but it is surprising how many organisations are harming their brand’s reputation because of their inability to use social media effectively.

3. Internal disruption

Social media can be a dedicated customer service channel. Just like telephone or e-mail, with the right planning and delivery, you can benefit from social media just as much as any other channel – if not more so.

There seems to be a misunderstanding by many organisations about this, however and social media is not often invested in in the most suitable way possible. Sometimes relying on staff to monitor and update accounts whenever they have free time, for example, this does not just mean you are likely to deliver a poor level of service via this channel, but it puts the onus on often unwilling or inexperienced employees.

Although it has been around for several years, social media is still a relatively new resource. You therefore cannot expect staff to be able to utilise it in the most effective way possible if they are to do so as part of their full time role, especially if they have no formal training.

Being a Facebook user and being able to use Facebook for business are two completely different things and some organisations are coming round to the fact that they need to invest in social media properly as a customer service channel, so to minimise internal disruption. However, there are still many organisations out there who are risking huge problems internally by expecting staff to manage their entire social media presence in what could be just a few ‘spare’ minutes each day.

Neither social media nor the entire customer service process are simple or straightforward, yet it is a popular thought that social media can be incorporated into a customer service model easily. In theory it can be, but just like any other channel, to get even the most basic of benefits it needs to be developed extensively, integrated only after you are certain it can be delivered effectively.

Fail to do this and the simple fact is you are going to face – at the very least – these three problems almost immediately.