It shouldn’t be a surprise that customers want a seamless experience when they do business. Still, they complain that companies just don’t deliver it. What’s the problem?
Actually, customers say several things frustrate them when they need help, according to a Parature survey.
Worst offenders
These are what customers say are the worst offenders:
- having to contact a company several times for the same reason (65%)
- waiting on hold for a long time (62%)
- dealing with unfriendly people (60%)
- receiving something that fell short of the upfront promises (58%)
- having to repeat the same information to different people in different channels (55%), and
- dealing with people or self-service that can’t resolve the situation (52%).
Here are four ways to make it even easier for customers to do business with you and eliminate these frustrations.
1. Use data to ask the right questions
If you care about the customer experience, you store customer data — order history, preferences and details on every customer contact. Yet, many employees ask customers things they should already know when dealing with a problem — e.g., “What did you order?” or “When did it arrive?” or “How do you like …?”
Reframing those kinds of questions in a way that shows customers you know what’s going on can make any contact seem easier. Ask:
- “You ordered the Premium Plan, correct?”
- “I see we delivered on Monday. Did it arrive alright?”
- “It looks like you returned that model. What didn’t you like about it?”
2. Know the desired outcome
Most customers know what they want when they contact you. Whether it’s a complaint, question or concern, they have an outcome in mind when they pick up the phone or start typing.
You can likely eliminate some steps, fact-finding and frustration by asking the customers, who don’t make their desires clear upfront, this question: “What would you like to see happen now?” Their expectations are often within reason, and their answers can guide you to a quick resolution — which makes the experience feel seamless.
3. Play like a team
You have the capability to hold lots of customer data. Make sure everyone at your company knows which workers interacted with customers and took information. When one employee refers to the last contact a customer had with another employee, customers will see there’s a team working for them. For instance, “I can see here that you exchanged some emails with my colleague Jennifer last week. What can I help you with today?”
Also, when one employee must call on another to get involved with a resolution, he or she should stay involved until the colleague knows all the details. For example, “Sharon, I have Mr. Customer on the line. He needs to change his line of credit. Can you help him with that?” Then the employee can introduce the two formally and leave the conversation.
4. Break down silos
Customers don’t care which department handles each issue, much less who works in the other departments. They expect that the person who takes their call, email or social media post will be able to take care of the issue. That means, every department needs to work seamlessly behind the scenes when it comes to customer issues.
Sure, breaking down silos is easier said than done — every department must be focused on what it needs to do each day to operate well. But here’s one way to move your organization in that direction so customers have better experiences:
Set a common goal. If the goal across the organization is to improve the customer experience so sales revenue rises, every department can focus on what it needs to do and how it needs to collaborate to meet the overall goal.
