It is fair to say that customer service has changed since the web 1.0 days. Empowered customers of today want to make their own choices in the way that they interact with companies they do business with. This means that not only does the company need to provide the goods and services, but also the tools and culture to make the service experience one of paramount value to the customer and thus to the company in return. Here are some key steps to take in order to maximize the service experience for a customer:

Know Your Customer

When a customer contacts a company, agents should have full access to the customer’s information. They should be able to view past and pending requests made across all available communication channels. In addition, if a request has been escalated from a web self-service session, agents should have access to the full session history in order not to repeat questions or searches that customers have already performed.

Couple Your CRM System with Others

CRM systems should be more than just the front end of a database of customer information and cases - they should also be integrated with back office applications. Real time data integration means the system can make calls to third party systems to retrieve a real time answer to a question such as “when did my order ship?” Some companies deeply couple knowledge management with CRM. When agents are gathering the details of the customer’s issue, under-the-covers searches are being executed so that an updated list of relevant solutions can be presented to the agent. Agents should then be able to drag and drop solutions right into the case details.

Make Search Smart

In order to optimize the search experience, context driven search should be available on the agent’s desktop. The context of the interaction with the customer should be passed into the search – such as the product version being used and its operating system - so that only targeted information is returned. To make the tight coupling of knowledge with CRM effective, agents should be able to easily create new knowledge, or modify inaccurate knowledge. Agents should also be able to bookmark knowledge that they frequently use, and be able to share these bookmarks with other agents, in order to help novice agents get up to speed. In addition, some CRM systems can be deployed to be fully “context sensitive”. For example, if an agent is researching the customer’s history, only screens that contain this information are actively available to him. This helps focus the agent on the task by guiding him through a complex application to the right information.

Meet Your Customer’s Expectations

Email has surpassed voice as being the preferred service choice. SSPA reports that customers expect an email response within 20 minutes to 2 hours,Yet, as Jupiter Research reports, email response times fall short of consumer’s expectations - only 42 percent of companies responded to inquiries within 24 hours in 2006—down from 54 percent in 2002.

Even with these statistics working against you, there are basic steps to take to ensure that your customers know when their questions will be answered.

Auto-acknowledgements are a fail-safe way to establish service expectations – for example by letting your customers know that they will receive an answer within 12 hours, or that their answer may be delayed because they are experiencing a higher volume of traffic than anticipated. Yet Jupiter Research tells us that only 39% of companies actually use them! If you implement auto-acknowledgements, personalize them and include any pertinent order information. You can even include links to related products for purchase for cross-sell opportunities.

Answer Your Customer’s Question

According to Forrester research, 6 in 10 customer service emails do not answer the customer’s question. Teach your agents to answer all questions – direct and implied - to reduce follow-on questions. For example, a customer asking whether shuttle service is available should receive a response answering this question, as well as the cost and schedule of the shuttle service.

Follow up by asking if the customer’s question was answered, and give them alternate contact methods – like for example a pointer to the frequently asked questions on the website or access to a chat link.

Never force your customer’s to use a particular communication channel, or get stuck with a single channel for the duration of the service experience. For example, a customer should be able to follow up an email service request with a phone call, and the agent should have access to the customer’s information across all contact channels. Lastly, allow customers to give you unsolicited feedback. As most of this feedback tends to be negative, strong focus should be given to addressing this feedback. Such interactions can be used as triggers to target consumers for proactive outreach.

These strategies put you on the path to engaging in a successful two-way conversation with your customer base. Customers will still influence the relationship they have with companies, yet companies will have greater success in creating a loyal customer base if they respect their customers.

Company: KANA