How To Transform Your Customer Service Experience

Rich Rosen is the Founder & CEO of Fastcall— a leading Salesforce native app for phone, SMS, and video. Rich has two phone-related patents

We all know that recent changes in customer service have been driven by the uncertainty of the last few years. Businesses worldwide, and across all industries, have experienced challenges that no one could have planned.

In this article, I will outline how the strategic role of customer service is shifting amid these developments and how companies can react.

Digital channels are accelerating.

As the world moved toward remote work and ever-changing safety protocols, company support lines became particularly stressed as the number of cases from disrupted customers grew. You have undoubtedly read about the resulting acceleration of digital channels across industries.

Customer service departments have historically been viewed as cost centers. Today, forward-thinking customer service teams have moved from a back-office necessity to the forefront of importance. In fact, Salesforce recently surveyed over 7,000 service professionals worldwide and found that agents have begun to have broader, more strategic roles, prioritizing customer satisfaction over speed to resolve issues.

Customers consider quality service and support as top needs. Rightfully, the role of a support rep has moved past resolving issues; the company support team is now a prominent contribution to the perception of the company. Support teams need to transition into strategic assets for their companies. In a competitive market where customer retention is paramount, the value of great customer service is becoming even clearer. In fact, according to PricewaterhouseCooper’s (PwC) report on the Future of CX (Customer Experience), 80% of customers consider speed and convenience most important for good service.

Intuitively, we know that good customer service makes us more likely to make another purchase. No surprise, customers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a company. Customers expect to solve complex problems by talking to one person. To respond to this expectation, customer service teams can research case swarming, or intelligent swarming methodology, an approach that utilizes collaboration instead of escalation to solve a complex customer problem. Using the case swarming model, customer service representatives would call upon a team of skilled experts from within the business to help them solve difficult cases.

With this in mind, it is not surprising that online chat, SMS, messaging and video support have all recently experienced strong adoption gains. However, most companies still offer phone support to their customers. Even with the rise of digital engagement and the fact that customers use many different channels to contact companies, customers still pick up a phone to call for help.

The phone remains a preferred channel for many customers. Despite some naysayers, the phone is not being replaced any time soon. But is there a way to improve the phone support experience for both your customers and support agents? You want a faster way to deliver better service over the phone. You also want to ensure that your agents have all the customer data and productivity tools they need to focus on customers—not technology—when customers call. Delivering exceptional service is as critical to your business as building extraordinary products.

How agents answer and process phone calls have evolved. The majority of service agents are more likely to manage voice phone calls through a PC than a traditional desk phone. Today’s modern phone applications are either integrated with or developed inside a CRM application.

Service professionals have described customers as more anxious and demanding while presenting more complex cases, according to the Salesforce report cited above. While volume is increasing, headcounts and budgets have remained flat at many organizations. One answer is automation, particularly repetitive manual tasks. Chatbots can help but are limited to low-complexity tasks.

Customers expect consistent interactions with brands.

We must remember that customers view our companies as a whole rather than as individual departments. When our customers have a disjointed journey, they leave in search of a competitor. Customers expect consistent interactions across departments, but too often, sales, service and marketing don’t share information.

In addition to their central role in keeping customers happy, the trend of service teams functioning as new and valuable sales channels means they are increasingly held in high esteem, particularly in high-performing organizations.

Product knowledge is a highly valued hard skill. Support agents act as trusted advisors with the necessary know-how. It is important that hard skills are continually improved as our offerings and technologies develop. Today’s modern communication applications are designed to integrate with your CRM application. This puts the knowledge needed by your agents at their fingertips. Soft skills are also critical, such as empathy and adaptability. Happier, well-equipped agents can be more productive and more likely to have room for empathy.

When teams think about the future of customer engagement—now including remote work—they’ve needed to redefine their people, process and technology. Service organizations must continue to invest in tools, programs and training to empower staff with the skill set their evolving roles require.

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