With the rise of social media channels, your customers now have more ways to reach your support team besides chat, call and email. And they’re expecting a fast response. This isn’t anecdotal – 89% of customers consider quick response times an important factor when deciding which company to choose – but did you also know that 50% will switch to a competitor after just one bad experience? The pandemic has only amplified these expectations: 64% of customers used a new support channel in 2020, and 73% plan to keep using it, according to Zendesk.
At this point, brands need to be asking themselves just how responsive they are throughout ALL of their support channels.
The best way to ensure that customers are supported at every step of their customer journey is to implement a cohesive multichannel engagement strategy. In the wise words of Hubspot, a multichannel experience is “an approach to marketing, selling, and serving customers in a way that creates an integrated and cohesive customer experience no matter how or where a customer reaches out”.
Companies ranging from Amazon and Starbucks to Fonecta and Finnair have proven that implementing this approach not only increases customer satisfaction but also retains customers in the long run. At Helphouse, we know this as truth! In fact, acquiring one new customer was seven times more expensive than retaining an established one.
5 ways to achieve multichannel customer satisfaction
1. Define your brand’s customer experience journey
Defining your brand’s desired customer experience journey is not as simple as it sounds. It can be a lengthy process involving everything from marketing to check-out, to customer service, to after-sales service.
The best way to concretize what is important to your customers is through an inter-departmental workshop. Then, it’s time to start digging: Some of the best information is already sitting right in front of you, in your customer support data. This includes:
- the most frequently asked questions
- when and where your customers are interacting with your brand
- what they are inquiring about
Whether it’s quick responses, great FAQs, or 24-hour support, you will now have a clear picture of what matters most to your customers.
The next important step in this process is distributing concrete tasks to everyone involved. Ending the workshop with a statement like, “We want to improve response times” is not enough. Instead, try asking, “What do we need to do so we can improve response times? The solution could be optimizing processes, implementing a virtual agent, updating overcomplicated workflows, or simply acquiring a better CRM platform.
2. Integrate a reliable CRM platform
One factor that always affects your customers’ perception of your brand is how they perceive their interactions with your agents. If your agents are too busy jumping from system to system, answering on various platforms via multiple systems and maneuvering overcomplicated workflows, they will not be able to deliver optimal support.
The implementation of a CRM system could help you remedy these issues. Although it’s technically possible for your team to integrate a CRM in-house, we recommend working with one of your CRM’s trusted partners to make sure that you get everything right from the outset while saving both time and costs. Your implementation partner is a proven expert at finding the right system for your business, will have it up and running in no time, and can easily migrate your data. Most importantly, your partner will train your team, helping them work more effectively and spend more time on what matters: building stronger customer relationships and strengthening your position in the market.
This is where we come in. Helphouse.io is a certified Zendesk Master Partner, they are one of the leading Zendesk Solution providers in EMEA, with a track record of 500+ successful projects across the world.
3. Enrich your customer understanding with a data deep dive
Did you know that your past conversations with customers are a treasure trove of useful data? And that most companies think they know their most frequently asked questions but actually miss the mark more often than not?
You know what they say – knowledge is power; it’s also the third step on our journey to stronger customer satisfaction. Our automation partner, ultimate.ai provides an impact report that identifies your top inquiries – it is created by simply connecting your CRM to our tool and letting the AI analyze historical support conversations.
Once you’ve collected the most common customer pain points, you can identify where your resources are best spent. This may include honing in on where to put more hands on deck, where to apply automation, and where your customer support could be more proactive.
4. Launch a virtual agent to support your existing agents
Your human agents are indispensable when it comes to supporting more complex customer inquiries. They are a critical part of the ideal customer experience and should dedicate all of their efforts to making customer interactions as smooth and empathetic as possible. So who’ll be there to take care of the repetitive, the mundane, and the after-office hours? Virtual agents!
With ultimate.ai’s virtual agent platform, human agents can focus on cases that require, well, a human touch, while virtual agents will tackle whatever’s left – no annual leave or downtime needed. Because we’re better together.
5. Implement consistency across all agent messaging
Both human and virtual agents require tone of voice training. This isn’t just a nice-to-have for strong multichannel engagement – it’s a core component of the on-boarding process. When done right, it enables on-brand communication across all channels and agents. So no matter where or how customers interact with your support, their experience will be nothing less than exceptional, from beginning to end.
Make the magic happen, by following these 5 steps:
Ultimate.ai is building the world’s first virtual agent platform, focused on delivering an exceptional customer experience. It supports customers in automating conversations and tickets in Zendesk Chat, Zendesk Support, and Sunshine Conversations. Learn more about the platform here.
Ultimate’s seamless integration with Zendesk, alongside ongoing product innovation and development, provides invaluable insights to optimize customer support using historical data. Combine that expertise with Helphouse.io’s proven record of Zendesk integrations and strong customer satisfaction, and you can rest assured that you’ll achieve a flawless multichannel customer experience.