Keeping up with today’s trends is no simple feat. But staying relevant with customer experience trends can make or break revenue and customer retention. Considering 43% of all consumers are willing to pay more for greater convenience, and 42% would pay more for a friendly and welcoming experience, it’s undeniable that customer experience can set you apart from your competitors.
In Oracle’s Global CX Insights Report, over 90% of respondents agree that customer experience should be a priority in terms of company focus — no matter what the discipline, industry, or company revenue is. And every year, with shifts in digital transformation, new customer expectations mean you need to set new goals to deliver an amazing customer experience.
We’ve gathered a few goals to add into your CX strategy to drive your customer experience ahead this year.
>> Read Next: The 5 Best Practices for Texting Customers: How to Boost Customer Experience and Loyalty Without Spamming Your Customers
Goal #1 – Rethink Your Voice-First Strategy
Ok, look. I’m not going to tell you to throw out phone support altogether. There’s a time and place for placing a phone call to a customer service team. But honestly, most customers today are looking for any other possible channel to reach you before they consider picking up the phone to call.
Customers today want accurate and relevant help as quickly as possible. In fact, Forrester reports that 53% of customers are likely to abandon an online purchase if they can’t find a quick answer to their question. And 73% of them note that a company valuing their time is the most important part of good customer service. Often, phone support just doesn’t cut it, taking more time and energy than other channels of communication (like texting).
Customer-facing teams need to eliminate those minor calls that clog call queues and distract qualified employees from tackling the more demanding issues. The solution is to not look to voice as your only method of contact. In comparison to phone support, SMS texting alleviates some of this pressure on your call center, reducing call volumes and cutting back on hold times.
Here’s how texting helps your customer experience:
- Adding in texting prevents calls to agents by giving customers a quick, more convenient way to chat with support. When you include texting within your IVR, you can deflect calls about simple issues and questions to a text thread. This way, incoming callers have the option to text rather than waste time out of their day languishing on hold.
- Texting with MMS messaging gives your agents a way to send more accurate and detailed information in fewer messages. Plus, sending and receiving pictures via text is even better since images are sometimes easier to understand than describing them.
- Texting doesn’t require your agents’ full attention. They can handle multiple text threads at one time rather than a single call at a time, making your call center more efficient. And thus making your customers happier with your customer experience.
Goal #2 – Expand Your Omnichannel Support to Include SMS
Online shopping has skyrocketed over the last couple of years. In 2021, consumers spent $870.78 billion online with U.S. businesses, up 14.2% from 2020. That’s enough to pay off every household’s mortgage in the state of Missouri (plus some). Since the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, customer behavior has all but demanded omnichannel support and strategy from businesses.
Customers expect to be able to reach you from multiple touch points seamlessly. And since over half of all internet traffic is coming from mobile devices, social media support should play a key role in your omnichannel strategy. But social media support is just not enough. Customers want to be able to text you too. Here’s why:
- Nearly everyone has access to texting, with 97% of Americans now owning a cellphone of some kind.
- When you offer texting support, there’s no added barrier of an app to download. Any customer with a phone can directly reach you.
- Customers don’t need to have the app open to see a text, making it far more likely that you’ll reach your customer.
Adding business texting doesn’t mean your agents have to answer every message that comes in. With the help of bots, automated messaging and AI, you can handle simple questions or commonly asked requests without ever reaching a human. Bots can also gather customer information before passing the customer over to a live agent. This makes for a better customer experience and a more efficient call center.
Goal #3 – Make your Customer Experience Personal
McKinsey & Co. reports that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. And 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. And 77% of consumers have chosen, recommended, or paid more for a brand that provides a personalized service or customer experience. To deliver a personalized experience, break down data silos across the organization. Then, your teams can freely share customer information.
Work with each department to craft a holistic customer journey. Tie together systems and processes for a more personalized experience. Then, use this customer information to bolster your customer experience in each channel. Some ideas for this includes:
- Connect your marketing automation tools to your CRM. Then, your sales team can cater their pitch based on the lead source.
- Connect your CRM to your ticketing system to see issue history with each customer interaction. Then, train your agents to use that history to build connections with customers over text threads or on phone calls.
- Connect your phone system to your CRM and get customer details on incoming calls and texts.
- Integrate your texting platform to route incoming texts to the agent best fit for handling each interaction.
- Make mass texts and messages more personal by using custom fields to add in customer names or addresses.
Create a more personal customer experience and your brand will stand out. Customers will remember your service. To set yourself for success in the next year, read more about meeting customer expectations with these 3 tips for call center efficiency.
This post originally published on January 7, 2021 and was updated on May 19, 2022.