Excellence in Multichannel Customer Service
Over the past few years, it has become an undisputable fact that consumers are going online for information more than ever. The good news is that in this multichannel world, there are methodologies, technologies and best practices that are proven to transform the quality of the online customer experience.
Delivering a problem-free multichannel customer experience begins by getting online self-service right. If you're among the 92% of companies who are offering a less-than-stellar customer experience, odds are your multichannel self-service experience is the cause of the problems—and THIS is where you need to focus your improvement efforts.
But how do you get there?
What you need is an easy way to spot the problems in your multichannel self-service experience so that your own unique path to improvement becomes clear. Use these five checkpoints as a guide for assessing the quality of your organization's multichannel self-service experience:
Checkpoint #1—accessibility and availability.
Visiting your customer-facing mobile, social media and website and asking yourself this honest question:
How EASY is it to find your company's self-service channel? Is it easily missed, buried behind a single-word "Help" or "FAQ" menu link, or reduced to a nondescript and generic looking "site search" field?
Answering these questions will help you assess whether or not the average customer, visiting your multichannel sites for the first time would be able to spot the self-service mechanism instantly.
Checkpoint #2—findability (of searched-for content).
When customers use your multichannel search tool, can they easily find the information they're looking for?
The primary job of any self-service tool is to effectively deliver the right answer. This is where most organizations fall short.
Customers don't want hundreds of possible answers, or even two possible answers. They want the one right answer.
Checkpoint #3—relevancy.
In cases where customers do manage to find the correct answers, what happens next? Is the customer presented with other contextually relevant information, such as answers to the next most-likely follow-up questions?
Such contextually relevant content is the key to creating an automated multichannel conversation with customers that results in high satisfaction or purchase decisions.
Yet, for most companies, the multichannel conversation never actually gets going. Instead, it comes to an abrupt end on a non-useful FAQ page, or in the face of hundreds of search results that customers simply chose to abandon.
Checkpoint #4—escalation.
When engaged in the multichannel self-service experience, can customers escalate their calls from a self-service channel to other channels seamlessly?
Companies that do make escalation options clear are cautioned not to pat themselves on the back, because just having the presence of the contact doesn't replace the necessity of providing a resolution online in the first place.
Checkpoint #5—feedback.
Is an easy-to-use customer feedback mechanism integrated into your multichannel self-service experience?
No organization can legitimately say it pursues excellence in multichannel self-service if it does not provide a mechanism for customers to rate its performance in this pursuit.
The mechanism can be as simple as a "yes/no" question such as "Did this answer your question?" or a star-ranking feature, where the customer is asked, "How would you rate the quality of this answer?"
Only when the feedback feature is served as a natural extension of the self-service experience will a company be able to know how customers truly perceive the online self-service offering.
Next Steps: Begin Achieving Excellence in Multichannel Customer Service Today
The five checkpoints above give you an understanding of what's required to get on the path toward delivering "excellence" in multichannel customer service. Adhering to these five checkpoints will lead you along the path to ensure you're meeting the expectations of today's consumers who wish to connect with a company whenever and however they choose.
But to truly vault into the zone of excellence in multichannel customer service, your self-service experience must also be enjoyable.
Having read this guide, you are now better equipped to derive an honest assessment of your current multichannel self-service performance.
IntelliResponse is here to help you in your next steps. Having deployed world-class virtual agent technology solutions at more than 360 enterprise organizations worldwide, IntelliResponse has a wealth of expertise to support you on the path to making multichannel customer service excellence achievable.
Contact IntelliResponse to schedule a no-obligation 30-minute assessment of your website's self-service capabilities. info@intelliresponse.com, 1-866-454-0084
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