We all know that customers are addicted to instant gratification. Waiting a month for a parcel to arrive was once considered reasonable, but next-day shipping is now the common expectation. Once upon a time, customers did not mind waiting five business days for responses, but now, they very much prefer chatting with businesses in real time.

Everyone’s on the fast track, zipping through life on a conveyor belt with no time to slow down for anyone, or anything. And, as the growth trajectory of digitalization continues to soar, there’s simply no turning back.

Enter customer service—the roadblock that can bring things to a grinding halt. When stonewalled by cheesy elevator music, customers can be left twiddling their thumbs and tapping their feet. And, just when they think that help has finally arrived, they end up being shoved back onto the merry-go-round of redirected calls. This leaves customers confused, disoriented, and most of all, frustrated—definitely not how businesses want to be remembered.

According to research by Salesforce and HubSpot, customers actually face such situations more often than not.

But with so many customer requests coming in every day via phone calls, emails, and social media, what can a rapidly expanding business do to handle it all?

The solution is pretty simple. When tackled individually, most customer complaints and requests can be solved within a matter of minutes. The key lies in directing customers to the right person via the path of least resistance. Flooded landlines are, in fact, goldmines of opportunity.

Did you know that customers who have their complaints solved within five minutes spend more on future purchases?

Be omnipresent—exactly where your customers are

Communication between departments is crucial to smooth customer journeys. After all, customers hate to repeat themselves. So, a simple way to avoid this is to always have your customers’ profiles on hand. But because customer needs are always changing, your customer profiles should also be constantly updated. This is where omnichannel customer experience strategies help businesses to provide tailored service.

The word stem omni- is derived from the Latin word omnis and means “in all ways or places”—which is exactly what customers want.

Customers no longer want to make the effort to go to a website and search for ways to contact a business. Instead, they demand that businesses meet them where they’re at, such as on chat apps where they are texting their friends.

It is not enough to just pick the most popular channels, either. While your customers may have several chat apps downloaded, they are most likely favoring one or two of them heavily over the rest. That’s why many forward-thinking businesses are casting their net wide by being available on as many channels as possible.

Use multiple communication channels with ease

That said, being everywhere all at once accomplishes little if there is no common touchpoint to unitfy all your channels. The worst-case situation is that your agents are finding themselves overwhelmed by constant streams of communications coming in from various channels. At the end of the day, the ones to suffer will be your customers.

But customers will happily jump between chat apps to reach out to you, just as they would with their friends. The onus, therefore, is on businesses to pick up conversations where they were left off, no matter how many times channels are switched. Try to manage this without a plan, and your customers could choose your competitor over you.

Did you know that 96% of customers will consider switching services for better customer service?

That’s why it is crucial to adopt CRM systems and centralized dashboards that unify various communication channels. This not only allows customer service agents to toggle between channels with little fuss, less time is also spent decoding customer requests. The best part: the baton can be passed between agents (and even departments) without all the unnecessary scrambling or delayed procedures.

Remember customers long after conversations end

The truth is, true omnichannel strategies continue long after the initial interaction. To ensure that your hard-earned customers keep coming back, you’ll want to reach out with your previous interactions in mind. But spamming their emails and blowing up their phones with irrelevant messages might possibly do more harm than good. After all, 60% of customers turn off notifications and mute chats that are irrelevant to them. What’s a business to do then?

Well, instead of bombarding your customers with every new offering and promotion, it’s advisable to make sure that your followup pitch is as relevant to them as possible. The good news is that chat apps leave a record of your previous customer conversations. But what makes the difference is adopting an omnichannel platform where your agents can easily log information, such as internal notes and customer contact details, all in one place.

Be on your customers’ speed dial

Clearly, customer service is a double-edged sword. When executed well, it can help to rake in massive sales. When handled poorly, however, it can quickly turn warm leads cold and slam the doors of opportunity shut—possibly for a really long time.

Many businesses have resorted to adopting chatbots and other forms of automation as a workaround. But that’s a path that you’ll want to proceed down with caution as more and more customers demand attention.

It might be tempting to hop onto the next, lavish, digitalization trend, but this is one instance when swimming against the tide might prove beneficial. Use technology to aid customer service and enable customized care, not replace it.

8x8 Converse provides customer service teams with the tools they need to serve up a frictionless customer experience, including:

  • The ability to add one or all your customers’ favorite chat channels: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Zalo, Viber, WeChat, KakaoTalk, and SMS
  • A unified platform that consolidates every chat app conversation into a single interface
  • Easy access to discussion history and internal notes for conversations with better context

For rapidly expanding businesses, big or small, 8x8 Converse is your omnichannel strategy. We are ready to make that change with you - find out more about 8x8 Converse here.