Using Content to Improve Customer Service
Customers want answers to their questions and they want them fast. When a customer has a simple question, they don't want to search through pages and pages of content on a company's website to find their answer. Unfortunately this is generally the case on most company websites, creating an overall poor online customer experience. Using virtual agent software (such as IntelliResponse) can help improve customer service by answering the customer's question without making them waste time searching through content.
Customer Experience Matters
Putting yourself in your customer's shoes you would see that what they want is short and succinct answers to their questions. Companies must try to relieve their customers from the complexity of their content and deliver a single answer to their questions. In a typical FORTUNE 500 environment, the combination of electronic documents plus website pages adds up to a staggering and unmanageable amount of content. For example, the average number of customer-facing Web pages managed by companies in the financial-services sector averages at more than 11,000 and in telecommunications that number climbs to 64,000. Wow, imagine being a customer trying to navigate through thousands of pages just to find the answer to your simple question. It would be nearly impossible! To put it in perspective, when a customer attempts to find information for "cancelling a check" on a leading financial services website, the search can bring up between 200 to 1,000 results, with the answer to the question not even on the first page. This results in a frustrated customer who must now resort to searching through pages of content in order to find the answer to a simple question.
The Content Challenge
One of the major issues is that the answers to common customer and service agent questions are there, but they are buried beneath content. Most organizations have 30,000 to 70,000 pieces of content, when realistically only 300 to 700 pieces of content are needed to satisfy both customers and agents.
There is not only the issue of having too much content, but also the problem of how content is delivered. Customers are searching for answers through a variety of channels: on a company's website, using their mobile or tablet devices, or calling into a call center to speak with an agent. Each of these channels has diverse needs in terms of content delivery. Take the question, "How do I cancel my account?" as an example. If a customer were to call into a call center, the content the agent may have would include procedures for client retention and special promotions available. If the customer were to ask this question on the website, the response may be an escalation to a specialty group that would focus on client retention. If the customer were to ask this on their mobile device, the answer may prompt the customer to call the company. All of the answers delivered to the customer through these channels have the same message but each was delivered differently depending on that channel. Content can be used to improve the customer experience but it has to be done the right way. It doesn't matter how many pages of content you have but rather how relevant that content is to your customers. Repurposing your current content to meet the needs of your customers is a quick and effective way to handle the majority of your incoming questions and create a positive experience for your customers.
Superior Service Counts
The last thing that you want to do as a company is waste your customers' time. Unfortunately this happens far too often; customers go online to find answers on your website and spend more time searching for their answer rather than finding it. If this is happening on your website keep in mind that 87% of site visitors have left a website when they could not find the information they were looking for. When this happens a customer escalates and goes to a more expensive channel such as voice or email—or they may go to a competitor if they are truly frustrated with their online experience.
Your customers want answers—So why not give them answers? Your content is valuable and so is your customers' time. By making your content easily accessible with one right answer, you will deliver a superior customer experience that will satisfy rather than frustrate.
To learn more about taking online self service to the next level for your customers, visit www.IntelliResponse.com.
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