Communicating with customers is part and parcel of running a successful business, but not all companies get it right. In fact, fluid communication can be notoriously challenging to achieve. You need to integrate multiple systems and make sure that all your staff is trained on using them.
So how do you get customer communication right? Let’s take a look.
Offer 24/7 Messaging Support
You don’t have to have customer service reps operating the phones all day and night, but it does help if customers have someone they can message if they get into trouble during the early hours of the morning. Just having someone on-hand to answer their queries is important and can dramatically improve the perceptions of your business.
Use Visual Engagement
Another strategy that you can adopt is to use visual engagement when dealing with customers. By offering real-time support cues, you can make it much easier for customers to understand what you are saying. In many cases, you can collaborate with them in real-time and correct any mistakes that they might be making.
Build An Omni-Channel Communication Strategy
When it comes to customer communication, building omni-channel communications and CRM phone integration is essential. You want to make sure that all your touchpoints line up and that you can track clients, no matter how they decide to contact you. Adopting this approach can dramatically improve the customer journey and improve engagement tremendously.
Improve The Customers’ First Experience
First impressions count, so if you can generate a great experience with customers from day one, then they are much more likely to stick around. There are many ways that you can improve communication with your customers. The first is to simply give them a courtesy call to find out whether they are enjoying their experience with you. The second is to avoid scripted conversations. Give customers the impression that they are talking to a real person at the other end of the line. Also get real-time support. This way, you can implement both chatbot and live chat to facilitate their needs.
Automate Some Aspects Of Your Communication
Speaking of which, it’s often a good idea to automate some aspects of your customer communication to differentiate you from the competition. Remember, most firms in your sector won’t be able to provide customers with real-time, instant support. However, if you automate, that becomes a distinct possibility.
Measure Your Customer Communication Metrics
Whenever you embark on a new communication strategy, you need to be able to measure the results. But which metrics matter?
The most important is probably the first response time. This shows how long it takes for a rep to respond to a customer query. The next is average resolution time, or the time that it takes for you to actually solve a customers’ problems.
The last category is customer satisfaction metrics. These tell you whether your customers are happy with your services or not.
You can improve performance on all of these metrics by training your customer service reps and assisting team performance.