In this post, we’ll list the do’s and don’ts of digital customer service, so you can provide the best digital experience for your customers.
Do’s of Digital Customer Service
1. Follow-up with Customers
When customers have question or issues, it’s important to follow-up with them and ensure their concern has been resolved in a timely manner. In a report by Oracle, 50 percent of customers only give a company a week to follow-up with them before they stop doing business with them. Due to this, it’s important to follow-up with every customer who has a bad customer service experience to understand what you can do better next time. Simply asking for their feedback shows that you care and are focused on their personal needs.
2. Offer Multiple Support Channels
Offering different ways customers can get in touch with you ensures they can get their questions answered in a way that’s convenient for them. In addition to your regular feedback channels like your call center, allow customers to contact you through email, live chats on your website, support forums, text message, or even Google chat.
3. Collect Customer Feedback
Only your customers can tell you if you’re providing great service and if your products are meeting their needs. By collecting feedback from them, you gain invaluable insights for your business. There are many ways to gather digital feedback, but the easiest is to add a feedback tab to your website that links to an online survey. Your survey should take no more than five minutes to complete and be less than 10 questions. You could also send the survey to your customers through email.
Once you have the survey results, you should execute any collective feedback that you receive. You might find that your call center wait times are frustrating your customers or your return policy is confusing. Implementing these changes will help you provide better customer service.
Don’ts of Digital Customer Service
1. Ignore Social Media Comments
Consumers use social media to praise and complain about the companies that they make purchases from. With so many comments, it can be easy to ignore them, but that can hurt your brand. When customers write on social media, it’s because they want a response. When you don’t give them one, it can make matters worse.
According to a Forbes article, social media expert Jay Baer says, “A lack of response is a response. It’s a response that says, ‘We don’t care about you very much.’”
To avoid alienating customers, try to have at least one employee in charge of social media monitoring. When customers receive prompt responses, you could turn them into loyal supporters of your business!
2. Treat Customers Like Transactions
In the digital world, it’s common to treat customers like transactions because you often don’t see them in person, but building relationships is essential to great customer service. For example, even if an employee is only on the phone with a customer for five minutes, it’s important that they connect with the customer on a personal level. To do this, you can train all your customer service representatives to put themselves in the customers’ shoes during their customer interactions.
3. Take A Single Approach for All Digital Channels
While it’s a good idea to have policies in place to respond to customer comments and questions online, the policy must allow for flexibility within digital channels. For instance, you should respond differently to questions asked via Twitter that are also asked on Twitter. The person who sent an email might be looking for a longer response, while the Twitter response is limited to 280 characters. People use different channels in different ways, so it’s important to tailor your service to customer’s needs.
In Conclusion: Provide a Consistent Customer Support Experience
In every customer service interaction, you should always put your clients first and provide consistent levels of customer service. Consumers look at individual interactions with your company when they assess their overall customer experience and it can be jarring if they have a great experience one day, but are treated rudely the next. The competition is steeper than ever, and it’s easy for customers to choose another provider if your company is not meeting their expectations.
Editorial Note: Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
