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5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of July 20, 2020

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

5 Customer Experience Trends Thet COVID-19 Is Only Accelerating by Stephen Fioretti

(SmarterCX) The current pandemic is a clear example of a disruption that, in many cases, is accelerating trends that were already happening.

My Comment: Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve shared my thoughts on how this crisis put us five years into the future. All the Zoom like calls, the virtual working experience and more would have eventually been here. COVID-19 just accelerated the adaption of a new way to do business. This article is an excellent look at how the future of customer service became today’s way of doing business.

Don’t Make These Common Self-Service Customer Experience Mistakes by Kaya Ismail

(CMSWire) We’ve asked industry leaders to weigh in on the importance of self-services and how brands can overcome some common self-service mistakes.

My Comment: The biggest mistake businesses make in the self-service world, which is more than just customer service, is they over-do it. Even the self-service lines at the grocery store have an employee helping everyone. This article includes a list and some insights into some common self-service mistakes. If you’re doing anything that includes a self-service experience, make sure you’re not guilty of any of these.

Zappos’ New Program Lets Shoppers Buy Single and Mixed Size Shoes by Alex Warner

(People) The shoe doesn’t always fit perfectly — so Zappos is on a mission to do something about it.

My Comment: I love Zappos, which is why I’m including this article. You may not be an online retailer that sells shoes (and much more), but there are many lessons that you can learn from one of the most customer-focused companies on the planet. In this case, they are breaking the tradition of how shoes are sold. It shows that one-size does not fit all – in that all people don’t wear the same size shoes on each of their feet. And, some people only have one foot, so why should they have to buy two shoes?! Check out this article and I think you’ll agree, Zappos is a customer service and experience rock star.

What Is Broken About Customer Experience Today? by Niraj Ranjan

(Forbes) Many of us have had to rely more on our existing customer base to ride through this turbulent period. And in the process of doing so, we’ve realized how important it is to have strong relationships with our customers and be more caring and human as a business.

My Comment: Is customer service broken? One of my favorite stats, that’s also mentioned in this article is that according to a Bain & Company survey, 80% of companies (and I’ll suggest that’s the leadership in those companies) believe they deliver “superior experiences.” The other side of this is that only 8% of customers agree. Here are four ways companies are guilty of underserving their customers.

How to Turn Every Customer Service Call Into a Valuable Customer-Retention Conversation by Gregg Schwartz

(AllBusiness) This article shares a few simple strategies to improve your customer retention with your everyday customer service interactions:

My Comment: The customer support department fields customers’ questions, complaints, problems, etc. Rather than just respond, why not take the opportunity, since your connected with the customer, to deepen the relationship. That turns customer support into customer retention, and that’s exactly what this article is about.

 

 

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.TheCustomerFocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Guest Post: 4 Strategies to Keep Customers Engaged and Coming Back

This week we feature an article by Eddie Davis, VP of Business Development for FINSYNC. He offers tips on how to engage and maintain loyal customers.

Ensuring that your customers are satisfied and eager to return is the lifeblood of a growing business. Providing a quality product or service that exceeds expectations is only the beginning. Turning first-time customers into repeat patrons these days is all about communication.

Social media, online review portals, email and other forms of digital communications have torn down the walls that once separated customers from businesses. Customers no longer have to accept waiting on hold on a customer service line to ask questions. They can post the question publicly and get responses in minutes. More importantly, they can share their experience using a company’s offerings with the rest of the online world.

Rather than shun this reality, savvy businesses are leaning into the opportunities for more direct, instant exchanges with customers as a means to address their questions and concerns, and to glean valuable feedback that can inform their upcoming offerings.

Here are some strategies that can help you keep your existing customers satisfied and coming back:

Embrace Customer Feedback

It’s essential to establish tools and practices that encourage customers to provide continuous feedback. A way to do this is to set up easy lines of communication online and ensure that you respond to customers’ posts quickly.

Creating online surveys can be a powerful and inexpensive tool to gain feedback on a new product or service. Let’s say you’re going to make changes and want to make sure they’re working for your customers. Emailing an online survey or including it in a regular newsletter can yield valuable insights. And your customers will appreciate the opportunity to communicate how they feel directly, rather than having to go to an online review portal or social media.

With surveys, it’s wise to let customers post anonymously, which ensures they will provide honest answers. It’s that honest level of feedback that will ultimately help you improve your business and customer retention.

And speaking of social media, it’s essential to keep tabs on what’s being said about your company on the major sites, especially online review portals. Some customers may look for answers by posting on your own social media pages, which you should be able to easily spot and then provide a response to ensure they’re satisfied. But in many cases, customers will give feedback without directly messaging or linking to your company’s social media account.

It may seem daunting to track what anyone is saying about your company online, but there are tools that enable you to automate this task by seeking out when your company is mentioned.

Respond Quickly

Seeking out and monitoring customer feedback is only part of the customer retention equation. To close the loop on this effectively, you have to make it a priority to respond on a timely basis, even if it’s just to inform them that you’re working on their request. The goal is to make sure customers feel their concerns are being taken seriously.

It also pays to be proactive. Set up a regular schedule of outreach, whether via email or other forms of direct contact, to invite customers to share questions or concerns they may have before you roll out a new offering. This is also a good opportunity to pitch customers on this new product or service.

Reward Loyalty

A customer loyalty program is another tried and true way of increasing customer retention, and digital communications technology has made this easier than ever.

Something as simple as discounts earned through points accumulated from previous purchases or even for filling out online surveys will serve as a tangible reward that your customers will come to appreciate and factor into their purchasing decisions.

And, let’s be honest, such programs are increasingly expected by customers.

A loyalty program will pay off in the end, because studies show it can cost five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. And according to one study, a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profit by more than 25%.

Offer Flexible Payment Options

Convenience, whether in the form of delivery options, product returns and exchanges, or customization, gives customers more reasons to stick with your business. The same principle applies to payment options.

Technology has led to many innovations in how we access our funds and pay for goods and services. Offering flexible payment options can make the difference between landing a customer or seeing them go elsewhere. This is especially the case with younger consumers, who have become accustomed to using apps to make purchases.

This doesn’t have to be expensive or onerous. Intuitive payment platforms make it easy for businesses to accept check, ACH, debit or credit card payments — even if you don’t have a merchant account set up.

Focusing on staying adaptable with payment methods, social media engagement and other forms of technology-driven outreach shows your customers that you’re keeping their needs and preferences in mind. And that goes a long way to ensuring they keep coming back.

Eddie Davis is the VP of Business Development for  FINSYNC , a consolidated cash flow management platform focused on helping businesses grow. FINSYNC’s intuitive online tools help automate payments and accounting and provide valuable insight through cash flow analysis. The lending network gives businesses access to fast, affordable financing. Connect with Eddie on  LinkedIn  and follow  @FINSYNC  on Twitter.

 

 

F or more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes article: Ninety-Six Percent of Customers Will Leave You For Bad Customer Service

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Another Way to Amaze Your Customers: Pay Attention

I recently wrote about taking the extra step to deliver amazing service. There were three steps: pay attention, care about your customers and put forth extra effort.

For this article, I want to focus on the first step—paying attention.

Paying attention is more than just the first step. It may be the most important step. One of our readers, Scott Anderson, shared a story about staying at a resort in Mexico. The porter followed Scott and his wife to the room with their luggage. Scott mentioned to his wife how much he would love a Dr. Pepper. (Funny… Dr. Pepper was in the example of the aforementioned article.) He didn’t ask the porter for a Dr. Pepper, nor did he think the porter was paying attention to what they were talking about. He wasn’t even sure if the porter spoke English. They hit the beach that afternoon and when they returned to their room, the mini-fridge was stocked with Dr. Pepper!

That reminded me of something similar. I was staying at a hotel that had an executive lounge. One of the “treats” they put out in the evening was the most delicious chocolate cookies I may have ever eaten. They were almost like a fudge brownie but in the shape of an oversized cookie. One word to describe them, other than amazing… DELICIOUS—in all caps!

One night, I commented on the cookies to the server in the lounge. She smiled and said, “Thank you.” When I was leaving the hotel the next day, the front desk clerk said, “We have a package for you.” It was a bag with half a dozen chocolate cookies inside!

The server in the lounge did more than just acknowledge my comment. She truly listened. Beyond that, she paid attention and took action on that one little piece of information that put an exclamation point on an already great experience.

Paying attention can help you find opportunities to create higher levels of customer amazement. My definition of “customer amazement” is to be better than average all the time. Typically, you just need to be a little better than average. Once in a while, an opportunity to truly WOW a customer “falls in your lap.” That comes from paying attention. You must not only hear what customers say, but you must also listen and take action. That’s when opportunities to soar way above expectations occur.

Whenever we do business with a person or company, we expect to be treated well. If all goes the way it should, it’s easy. When there’s a problem, it’s an opportunity to not only fix it, but restore confidence. When you add in a little something extra—because you paid attention to the customer—that’s when they say, “Wow!

You can’t WOW the customer every time. It’s impossible to do so. However, being amazing is possible. Just focus on a predictable and consistent above-average experience. While doing that, pay attention. That’s where you’ll find those opportunities to take amazement to the next level!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXX, Shep Hyken)

 

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Amazing Business Radio: Ramon Ray

Tools of Amazing Customer Experience
How Big and Small Businesses Can Improve CX

Shep Hyken interviews Ramon Ray, founder of Smart Hustle Media. They discuss various strategies and tools that businesses large and small can use to create amazing customer service and experience.

Top Takeaways:

Big companies often have more resources and can implement disciplined strategies, whereas small companies are nimbler and are often able to react and make necessary changes more quickly.
The difference between customer service and customer experience: Customer service is more immediate, often involves a human-to-human interaction and usually is a response to a problem or question. Customer experience is more overarching and can include product packaging.
A good customer experience can help you better market your business and build your personal brand.
Don’t underestimate the small, seemingly simple tools like business cards and email. Small details mean everything and can make or break your business.
Be aware of how the customer service and experience of your business looks from the outside. It can prevent customers from wanting to do business with you in the first place. In other words, it could be the bad customer experience you never hear about!
When sending an email, there are three things you must get right: a great signature line, a great subject line and a timely response. This is part of your customer experience.
Self-service options are great to have in place. This can range from a FAQ page to video tutorials on YouTube.
Don’t be afraid to invest financially in your business. Pay for the tools you need. This will create a better experience for everyone.
Above all, be genuine when interacting with people. That’s the key to an amazing customer service and experience.

Quotes:

“Better marketing and building your personal brand starts, many times, with the right customer experience.”

“There’s very little excuse to screw up customer service if the right tools are in place.”

“Be genuine. You have to really love people. It starts with that. It’s hard to fake a smile. If you enjoy people, you’ll be fine.”

About:

Ramon Ray is a best-selling author, global speaker, event producer and entrepreneur. He is the founder and producer of Smart Hustle Media, and has started four companies and sold two companies.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

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5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of July 13, 2020

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

10 Essential Traits of Customer-Centric Brands by Mark Harrington

(CMSWire) There are 10 fundamental traits that provide the foundational stepping stones for an organization to become customer-centric.

My Comment: You may say you are customer-centric but are you really? Here is a list of ten ways companies are focused on their customers. You may like some or all – and you may have some to add to the list – but it will be hard to argue that what’s on this list couldn’t help any organization, big or small, be better aligned with their customers’ needs.

16 Statistics on Why Omnichannel is the Future of Your Contact Center and the Foundation for a Top-Notch Competitive Customer Experience by Laura Krajewski

(Sharpen) We did the research for you and compiled a list of 16 statistics on why omnichannel service is important to your customer experience.

My Comment: The omnichannel experience has been around for years, but it surprises me that more organizations haven’t embraced the concept to the level needed to create total “communication convenience” for the customer. There’s a line in the article worth mentioning: “Today’s customers don’t only demand the best from products and services, they also demand the best from people and systems.” Here you will find stats and facts that will compel you to take a closer look at how easy and frictionless you make it for your customers to communicate with you.

Importance of Customer Experience by Nuxiba

(Nuxiba) This infographic shares advice to give your customer the best experience in your call or contact center.

My Comment: How can you improve the customer experience in a contact/support center? Oh, let me count the ways. There are plenty of good strategies and tactics out there, and here are five that apply to both B2C and B2B organizations.

How Brands Can Build Loyalty in the Era of the Millennial and Gen Z by Jason Parkin

(TotalRetail) New report uncovers brand affinity and purchase behaviors among the next generation of buyers.

My Comment: Customer loyalty is the prize that great organizations receive when they understand their customers’ needs, wants and expectations – and then execute to meet, if not exceed, them. This article examines these topics for the Millennial and Gen Z generations. Pay attention to lists like these, as they are what will help you make important decisions about how to market and serve this powerful and influential group of customers.

Six Ways To Help Better Retain Your Clients by Nick Brucker

(Forbes) Once you know why clients leave, it will be easier for you to fix the problem.

My Comment: We’ll close with an article on customer retention. I’m especially partial to the first of the six strategies covered, which is to “onboard” your customers and clients appropriately. Getting customers to use your products and services the right way obviously helps for a better experience. Also, pay attention to the fifth strategy about giving clients what they need, not just what they want.

 

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.TheCustomerFocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Guest Post: Best Customer Acquisition Strategies for Winning Over Customers

This week we feature an article by Daniel Bishop, an assistant editor and marketing consultant for ReallySimpleSystems. He shares multiple approaches to updating or creating your customer acquisition strategy.

The phrase ‘customer acquisition strategy’ is one that you would rarely hear outside the confines of a corporate marketing department.

For most businesses, customer acquisition simply involved choosing a marketing channel and publishing some kind of promotional content. This kind of approach certainly brought some results, but the how and why of its effectiveness often remained a mystery.

If we fast forward to the present day, we will find that the status of customer acquisition has changed dramatically. Whether you’re running a multinational enterprise or a small local business, you need to have a customer acquisition strategy in place in order to steer customers your way.

There are numerous acquisition strategies to choose from and it’s easy to get overwhelmed if this is your first foray into systematic customer acquisition. So to help you find a strategy that works for your business needs, we have collected the 6 most effective ones into a handy list which you can find below.

1. Update Old Content

As you publish content on your blog over a longer period of time, older posts will start getting buried deeper in your site’s architecture. And the deeper a blog post resides within your archive, the lower share of internal PageRank it will get. Even pages with plenty of external links will have a harder time staying relevant in terms of rank.

With that being said, the content within these pages can still possess significant conversion potential. All you have to do is bring them to the forefront of your website once again.

The simplest way to do this is to change the date of the post and publish it again. This will bring it to the top of your content feed. You can also go a step further and update the content within the post. This is especially handy for content that relies on data and hard numbers.

2. Create Unique Content Upgrades

Among the pages that host your content, some will perform better than others in terms of organic reach. If you can identify these pages, you can enhance them with content upgrades to increase their conversion potential.

Start by using Google Search Console to discover which keywords have the highest search volume when it comes to your content pages. By analyzing the keywords the people are using to reach your content, you will learn more about the intent behind their search. They might be looking for something as simple as a definition of a term, or they might be looking to buy something.

Whatever the case may be, this information will tell you what kind of upgrade you should make for your content. For instance, if someone is looking for data on the impact of color on web design, you can upgrade your content with an infographic that visualizes the information, or a whitepaper that elaborates on the topic.

3. Publish Content on External Websites

A lot has been written on this topic under the heading of ‘guest posting’. It used to be a standard SEO tactic a couple of years ago, but it has since fallen out of favor due to spam and other unsavory practices. Nonetheless, guest posting is still a powerful tool for acquiring customers.

The way you want to go about using guest posting is to only publish on websites that are directly relevant to your target audience. Relevance is best measured in terms of engagement. If the site in question has a high number of comments and shares, the odds that someone will follow a link to your website will rise.

Another point to consider when guest posting is the similarity between your own audience and the one on the external website. If your customer personas match, it will be much easier to create a piece of content that actually converts.

4. Salvage Unopened Emails

The majority of promotional emails you send will inevitably end up unopened. This is simply a fact of life in email marketing. However, even unopened emails can still help you achieve your customer acquisition goals.

The idea here is to create custom follow-up emails specifically targeting subscribers who haven’t been opening your emails or replying to them. These emails should have a different subject line to set them apart from the previous email in the chain.

Timing is critical for salvaging unopened emails. You don’t want to wait for too long, but you also don’t want to spam their inbox with a series of emails in a single day. Forty-eight hours is the sweet spot for sending follow-ups after an unopened email. Email marketing software makes it easy to keep track of your email marketing campaigns, as well as salvaging unopened emails.

5. Answer Quora Questions

For the uninitiated, Quora.com is a website where users can ask questions and get answers from other registered users. The topics it covers range from cooking pasta to migrating your offshore holdings, and everything in between. Quora is also a great source of referral traffic, provided you can give useful answers to user questions.

To get started with Quora, use SEMrush (or a similar service) to find top ranking Quora questions according to search engines. These are the questions you should create content for.

Don’t simply post a link to your website as a part of your answer. At first, try to provide value without resorting to links. Once you build up your reputation, you can start including links to your website in your answers.

6. Build an Influencer Referral Campaign

Influencers within your industry that command a large online following can be a valuable source of new customers. The trick is finding ones with a reputation that inspires trust in followers. You don’t want to entangle your brand with influencers that are prone to mood swings, chasing trends, and switching brand allegiances.

Work with each influencer individually. You want to leverage the strength of their unique personality and followers. This should extend to your referral links as well. Have all of them link to custom-built landing pages.

Acquire Them All

Customer acquisition is a critical component of your business strategy. It provides the ‘raw’ resources for your sales operation, i.e. customers expressing interest in your business. By acquiring customers in a strategic manner, you will create a stable revenue stream. Give these approaches a try, and prepare your business for the long haul.

Daniel Bishop currently works as an assistant editor and marketing consultant for ReallySimpleSystems. He started off his career in digital marketing by working for a few local companies. After a year or two of learning different aspects of the job, he moved on and worked for DesignRush as a content advisor.

 

 

F or more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes article: How To Make Better Zoom Calls–Or Any Other Type Of Video Call

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Would You Please Leave a Review About Your Experience?

Getting customers to review their experience with you is powerful.

Before they make a purchase, go to a restaurant, stay at a hotel and more, many customers do online research, which leads them to reviews that help form their opinion of products or services they want to buy—or even the company they want to buy it from. Nothing new there.

How do you get reviews? Well, the easy way is to ask for them. By the way, I recently interviewed Rupesh Patel on Amazing Business Radio, and he shared the “secret sauce” on how he gets amazing guest reviews for his hotels—and his recipe can work for any business. I suggest giving that episode a listen. Back to the concept of asking for reviews. I was recently asked about how to get good reviews and I noted that there are at least two requirements:

The customer must be willing to leave a review.
Your employees must deliver the positive experience you want your customers to talk or write about.

Customers who leave reviews fall into two categories. The first is those who are prone to leave the review without asking. The second is those who are willing to do so if you ask. Either way, if they are willing, then you should make sure the review they write about you is a good one. The only way to make that happen is to give them what they need to do so, which is a good experience.

A few years back, I wrote about a hotel that had a sign that read, “Please leave a review on Trip Advisor.” Then I received terrible service. As I was checking out, I picked up the sign, showed it to the front desk clerk and asked, “Do you really want me to leave a review?”

Here is the point. If you want your customers to leave a good review, everyone in your organization must understand that they are all part of what will be graded. Everyone must do their job to ensure the customer has an experience you would want them to write about. Hold them accountable and responsible for ensuring the experience is worthy of a good review.

Even employees who don’t work on the front line have a place in the customer experience they must understand. In a “behind-the-scenes” supporting role, they take care of someone who is doing something that directly impacts the customer’s experience—even if they never see the customer.

You want customers to want to come back. You want them to talk positively about you. You want a good review, whether they publish it or not. Make sure your entire team understands the goal, then empower them to go out and achieve it.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. For information, contact 314-692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXX, Shep Hyken)

 

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Amazing Business Radio: Patricia Fripp

The Secret to Success is Good Customer Service
How to Use Customer Service Stories to Teach, Inspire and Reward

Shep Hyken interviews Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE, speech coach and customer service expert. They discuss her career history of using amazing customer experiences as a competitive differentiator, plus a few tips on speaking and presenting.

Top Takeaways:

Money should not be your main career goal. You will achieve more success if you instead focus on becoming someone that people want to do business with. In other words, focus on building your soft skills and delivering great customer service. The money will follow.
A good customer experience has the potential to be your most powerful marketing tool. The better service you deliver, the more likely your customers are to recommend you to others.
Try to make each and every one of your customers feel like they’re the most important person in the room.
Recognize the importance of publicity; become a shameless self-promoter. Being good at what you do is one thing, but the world has to know. It’s not so much what you say, but to whom you say it.
Customer service and the customer experience is all about how you make the customer feel. The goal should be for them to leave feeling better than they did when they arrived.
Figure out the one, simple question you can ask your customers to gauge whether you achieved your goal. It could be something like, “was your problem resolved?” or “would you recommend us?”
Your business is only as good as your worst employee. Make sure everyone is in alignment with your company’s culture and customer experience mission.
When delivering a message to your staff, speak as an audience advocate. Be specific—specificity builds credibility.

Quotes:

“Don’t concentrate on making a lot of money; rather, concentrate on becoming the type of person people want to do business with.”

“Your business is only as good as your worst employee.”

About:

Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE is an award-winning, Hall of Fame keynote speaker and speech coach. She is a former president (and the first female president) of the National Speakers Association and is a member of Speakers Roundtable.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

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5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of July 6, 2020

Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

The most important customer service qualities in the next normal: Expertise, empathy, and speed by Vala Afshar

(ZDNet) Salesforce surveyed over 3,500 consumers worldwide to understand what customers need, and how companies can deliver the best customer service experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Expertise, empathy, and speed are the top three most important customer service qualities.

My Comment: Vala Afshar, the Chief Digital Evangelist for Salesforce has summarized some very important stats and facts around what customers want and expect. Salesforce surveyed over 3500 consumers around the world to understand how to give the best customer service in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, getting to the customer service rep is of major importance, but once there, customers expect the rep to be an expert (in other words, answer the question), deliver with empathy, act with speed and demonstrate flexibility (in that order). There is plenty of great information here to get you thinking.

How Customer Experience is changing the healthcare industry by Steven Van Belleghem

(Steven Van Belleghem) Healthcare is one of those industries that everyone needs, but no one really loves. One of the big reasons obviously is that sickness always comes with pain and fear, but the problem reaches deeper.

My Comment: Even though this article focuses on customer service in healthcare, the author, Steven Van Belleghem is a true genius in the service and experience space, so I get excited when I read his content. So, consider that while the article is focused on healthcare – and the numbers he shares may be different in your industry – the concepts are still valid for almost any industry or business.

6 Ways to Boost Customer Experience Design Adoption & Growth by Ricardo Saltz Gulko

(Eglobalis) As we move forward into an increasingly competitive technology market, how can we continue to differentiate?

My Comment: Ricardo Saltz Gulko is CX designer. He understands how to take a complex process and simplify it for the customer. This article showcases six ways to create simplicity and make the experience easier, especially when it comes to implementing technology. Companies must simplify the complex and create an intuitive experience.

The Ultimate Guide to Customer Feedback by Anita Toth

(Anita Toth) In this article you’ll learn how to fully capitalize on the incredibly invaluable customer data you’re currently missing—and how to mine the significant revenue opportunities that are currently sitting untapped.

My Comment: Even if this isn’t the “ultimate” guide to customer feedback, the article contains a large amount of information. Not your typical article, it’s a deeper dive into understanding how to get feedback, understand the data and much more. If getting feedback is important to you – and it should be – then take the time to go through this “guide.”

When was the last time you experienced your customer experience? by Bob Azman

(CustomerThink) As CX professionals, we spend a lot of time collecting customer information, analyzing survey data, completing journey maps, creating process maps, using measurements to track our progress against established metrics and so on. All these activities are time well spent in the pursuit of a better customer experience. But too often, they become our only activities in pursuit of this goal.

My Comment: I like the title of the article. I often ask the same question of C-Suite members of my clients. They don’t often “mystery shop” their own businesses, but if they did, they might be very surprised. This simple article starts off with a list of ten ways to learn more about what your customers might experience when they do business with you. When was the last time you… Accessed your website from your mobile device, checked to see if the promotional codes you offer your customers actually work, tried to return one of your products…? You get the idea. The goal is for you to experience your experience.

 

 

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.TheCustomerFocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Guest Post: 9 Best Tips for Maximizing Your E-Commerce Customer Service

This week we feature an article by Jake Rheude, Director of Marketing at Red Stag Fulfillment. He writes about how to best perform e-commerce customer service.

Impeccable customer service helps you hit the hearts of your followers. After all, any good brand out there does not just only have customers. They also have followers and brand advocates. You can achieve that by providing the best customer service possible. Great customer service has the power to leverage your e-commerce brand in ways that you could not imagine. In this post, we will walk you over the nine best tips on how to maximize your e-commerce customer service.

Offer 24-Hour Phone Support

So, when was the last time that you left a voicemail in an e-commerce store? If you are not quite sure, then you are not alone. However, times are changing. Several integrated customer service solutions are now offering voice products that will take in voice mails if the brand could not be online. On that note, you can utilize a 24-hour answering service so that your prospects are always communicating with a live person.

Use Live Chat

Live chat apps on websites provide customers a quick way of getting in touch with customer representatives to easily resolve their issues. There are several ways you can benefit from offering a live chat feature on your website. In fact, according to data by Econsultancy, it is one of the most preferred methods of customer service. Customers can easily decide to leave your site if they meet issues in purchasing along the way. But having a live chat in place, they can easily get in touch with you to resolve them. It also serves an excellent point of contact for queries that are related to returns, product warranty, and payment process.

Create a Multi-channel Strategy

Over the last couple of years, businesses used a single phone line. While this is still perfectly acceptable today, this alone will no longer be enough. Customers these days expect that they could get in touch with you in the best way that works for them. Gone are the days where the only way is to have one communication channel to reach you. So, if you want to provide them with world-class customer support, you need to consider implementing a multi-channel strategy. You cannot limit your customers to one channel. A multi-channel strategy incorporates various promotional and distribution channels so that you can better reach, connect, and create a better rapport with your customers. The end goal of an effective multichannel strategy is optimized for results, as well as deliver high-quality customer service across all social media channels you are in.

Set Up a Knowledge Base

In a nutshell, a knowledge base is an area in your site that is dedicated to customer service. It is filled with tutorials and answers that you can send to your customers should problems and questions come up.

It helps you save time, as you already have pre-created answers. For example, a FAQ page is considered as a knowledge base. A FAQ page can:

Decrease purchasing anxieties that your product page copy does not directly address.
Remove the burden on customer support by directly answering publicly common questions.
Boost your SEO efforts and site navigation.
Earn the trust of users by demonstrating your expertise on the product and explaining your business model.
Please customers by answering their questions creatively.

Automate Online Order Fulfillment

It is high time to move from a manual, automated system to an automated one.

Manual order fulfillment systems are slow, prone to human error, and extremely inefficient. Using an automated e-commerce order fulfillment will help you handle the entire process from beginning to end, helping you save time, improve productivity, and boost customer satisfaction.

Show the Billing History

Your customers will be happier if you make it easy for them to find things online. They expect that they could be able to access their account, view various payment methods and details, billing history, and order status.

Moreover, all the inquiries related to invoices and shipping status will cause a bottleneck in your processes over time.

Measure Customer Satisfaction

The best way to enhance your customer service and marketing strategy is to measure the rate of your customer satisfaction.

The best way to accomplish this is to ask your customers to complete a survey as to how they evaluate your company’s customer service. You can also send in a follow-up email asking them for a product review or about their experience.

Provide Personalized Support

Every customer in your store is unique, and you should treat them differently.

E-commerce has gained a significant advantage over physical stores because it delivers customers a very specific experience.

Personalization is usually made up of landing pages that are customized, emails containing special offers, targeted advertisements, and so much more. Moreover, since the majority of these activities happen online, you can track and analyze your customers’ shopping behaviors.

Meaning, once a customer contacts you for support, you already have data about that particular customer, including the purchase history. This allows you to provide them with a more personalized customer experience.

Use Customer Service Software

When a customer query gets passed on to multiple customer representatives, it sometimes can be frustrating. There is also a high risk that you will not be able to answer your customers’ questions properly. Not to mention that it is not fair for the customer to explain his issues over and over again.

Utilizing a customer relationship management (CRM) software will help you streamline the entire process. The most post popular way of handling these problems is through ticketing, which is part of the CRM software.

Wrap Up

Customer service is a crucial part of your e-commerce business. While some points we have mentioned in this article are simple enough, others take more time and do take a lot of effort to successfully implement.

But at the end of the day, it all goes back to how much effort you are putting in.

When your organization invests in excellent customer service, you can improve the long-term loyalty and lifetime value of your prospects. With the right strategy, planning, and implementing the ideas that we have discussed in this post, you can set your e-commerce business for success.

Jake Rheude is the Director of Marketing at Red Stag Fulfillment, an e-commerce order fulfillment service provider. He has years of experience in e-commerce and business development. In his free time, Jake enjoys reading about business and sharing his own experience with others.

 

 

F or more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes article: Three Ways To Prepare For The Post-Pandemic Customer Experience

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