“Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold for the next available agent.”
If you work in customer service, you know that one of the most common complaints is making someone wait. Customers hate being put on hold, and it’s not hard to see why. Most likely, they are already upset about whatever issue they are calling about and being put on hold just makes them feel like they are being ignored. But there are ways to fix this problem.
Here at Velaro, we conducted a survey to determine the maximum amount of time customers would be willing to wait on hold for service. The results showed that almost 60% are not inclined to wait more than one minute and 32% will not wait at all.
This means that if you don’t answer a chat or a call within 60 seconds, you’ve lost 40% of your potential customers. And if you make them wait more than a minute, you’re in danger of losing over 70% of your potential customers.
The bottom line is that you need to answer a customer's request as quickly as possible if you want to keep your customers happy. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to improve the experience for your customers.
Why Customer Responsiveness Is Important for Business
Having a customer-centric approach to customer service is essential for businesses that want to stay competitive. By responding quickly and efficiently to customer inquiries, businesses can show their customers that they value their time and feedback. This can help build trust between the business and its customers, which can lead to increased loyalty and repeat customers.
Additionally, businesses that take the initiative to tend to customers' needs and complaints in a timely manner, can identify potential unnoticed problems and take the steps to resolve them before they become major issues, avoiding future negative experiences for customers.
The Role of Personalization in Customer Service
Personalization is increasingly becoming a significant factor in customer service. Customers appreciate when businesses take the time to recognize their specific needs and preferences. This could involve remembering their past interactions, offering tailored product recommendations, or using their name during conversations.
Examples of Personalization in Customer Service
Remembering Customer Preferences: Businesses can use customer data to remember things like favorite products or frequent purchases. This helps provide more relevant recommendations and improves customer satisfaction during future interactions.
Offering Tailored Product Suggestions: Analyzing past purchases and browsing behavior allows businesses to suggest products that align with customer preferences, creating a more personalized shopping experience. This approach engages customers more effectively and can increase retention.
Addressing Customers by Name: Using a customer’s name in communication (emails, calls, chats) adds a personal touch. This simple act helps form stronger emotional bonds with the customer, which can encourage loyalty.
Personalized Follow-Up Emails: After a purchase or interaction, businesses can proactively send follow-up emails tailored to the customer’s behavior or preferences, such as reminders for restocking a product or suggesting complementary items. This proactive approach helps keep the customer engaged and encourages future purchases.
Providing Customized Promotions: Offering discounts or special offers based on a customer's past purchases or browsing habits creates a more individualized experience and can drive repeat business.
Dynamic Website Experiences: Websites can adjust their content in real-time based on a visitor’s past behavior, preferences, or demographics. For example, showing relevant products or messages tailored to a specific user, which enhances engagement and the likelihood of conversion.
Tips for Improving Customer Service Response
Improve the customer service experience for both your employees and your customers by following these tips to reduce the amount of time your customers spend on hold.
Using live chat to reduce customer wait times
Live chat is an excellent way to speed up the customer service process. By using live chat, you can avoid putting customers on hold and get them the help they need right away. And if you add a chatbot solution to your live chat, you can provide 24/7 support. Chatbots can answer common questions and help guide customers to the right resources at all hours.
Additionally, live chat gives you the opportunity to provide a more personal level of customer service. You can build a rapport with your customers and create a more positive customer service experience.
The right live chat software can help you answer multiple customer queries at once. You can have one agent or a full team answering multiple requests at the same time, increasing your team's responsiveness, and reducing customer complains.
Applying canned responses in live chat interactions
Canned responses are an efficient communication method for live chat agents to improve productivity when managing multiple chats. By having a library of pre-written messages, your agents can quickly and easily respond to common questions, reducing customer wait times and improving customer satisfaction.
There are many benefits of using canned responses during active live chat conversations. Implementing these type of messages makes the conversation more effective and consistent, additionally, canned responses can keep your customers engaged. People really appreciate when they are kept informed and acknowledged while tending to their queries.
Build a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page
Customers appreciate it when they can solve their own problems without having to wait on hold or for a response. By having an FAQ dedicated section or page on your website, you can provide customers with the answers they need right away.
Connecting your live chat and chatbots to your FAQ page, or integrating a chatbot with a knowledge base solution, will make the experience even more enjoyable for your customers as they can get answers to their questions right through the chat interface.
Create a Help Center for customers
You can further reduce customer wait times by creating an online help center portal for your customers. Use a knowledge base software to create a searchable digital library of information that can be accessed by your customers. This library can include articles, videos, and FAQs that can help customers navigate through possible solutions or tutorials.
By having a help center, you can provide customers with a self-service option that can decrease the number of supports calls you receive, reducing ticket backlogs and improving customer satisfaction.
Make the shopping process simple and easy
It's been proven that a poor user experience during an online shopping process can significantly increase the amount of abandoned shopping carts and unfinished transactions. If you want to keep your customers from getting frustrated and leaving your site, you need to make sure the shopping process is as simple and easy as possible.
Consider adding features such as product reviews, customer testimonials, common asked questions, a chat widget or a chatbot to help guide customers through the shopping experience. By making the shopping event easy and convenient, you can increase the level of service during your customer's buying journey.
Give customers the option for a call back
If you're using live chat on your website, you may want to consider giving customers the option to request a call back, if the chat is unavailable. By offering customers the option to schedule a call, you can avoid putting them on hold and get them the help they need to the time that is convenient to them. This is a great way to provide a more personal level of customer service.
What makes customer service consistent and reliable?
Improving your customer service responsiveness can only be achieve by understanding your customers. There are several factors that make customer service consistent and reliable:
- Train your team members and give them the right tools and the necessary skills to be ready and able to provide excellent customer service.
- Automate systems and processes to ensure that your team is always providing consistent and reliable service. One example of automation in customer support is using a chatbot to respond to customer inquiries when your team is not available. Keeping your customers informed and engaged will ultimately prolong loyalty and confidence.
- Create an omnichannel customer service strategy that connects all the systems. Expanding your customer support reach to various channels of communication including social media, will deliver customers with a seamless experience no matter how they contact you. By using a CRM system, you can keep track of your customer interactions and provide a more personalized level of customer service.
- Make human connections. Technology can increase efficiencies, but excellent customer service should always include a human-centered approach. Customer loyalty can only grow exponentially when your support team is compassionate and receptive to customer's needs and emotions. This association builds trust and long-lasting relationships.
Making your customers feel valued will ensure their loyalty
Customer service is the act of providing support to customers during their customer journey. It can include anything from answering customer questions, guide customers during an onboarding session, to resolving customer complaints and frustrations. Quality customer service is essential to the success of any business. It can make the difference between a satisfied customer who will return in the future and a dissatisfied customer who will never come back.
Improving customer service starts with making your customers feel valued and earn their trust. Creating a customer-centric culture in your organization will ensure that your team members are focused on providing the best possible experience for your customers.
