Providing excellent customer service is an art, and any business that cannot meet the challenges of delivering first-rate customer service sinks into trouble. Without maintaining high customer satisfaction, a company’s reputation and sales can suffer. Consider four of the top challenges that many companies face in delivering exceptional customer service today.
No Clear Communication
One of the primary reasons why many businesses cannot maintain effective customer service is due to the lack of clarity in the communications process. The fact is that communicating with customers well and arriving at balanced solutions is an in-demand skill that not everyone possesses. Designing a clear communication strategy and educating service agents properly is important for overcoming poor interactions with customers. Without a sound communication strategy and relevant procedures to remedy issues that may arise, customer dissatisfaction increases.
Omni-Channel Service Challenges
With so many customer service outreach options available, businesses are struggling to build a strong omni-channel to raise efficiency. Salesforce declares that the lack of alignment due to varying levels of difficulty and integration among systems of engagement and systems of records causes numerous customer service problems. Client information must be easily accessible for customer service agents, no matter what channel the customer chooses to reach out through. For some businesses, focusing on delivering a great customer experience through one channel leaves them less likely to execute excellence through other customer contact methods that are growing in popularity.
Changing Customer Contact Methods
Due to the integration of a variety of customer contact methods in communication technology, businesses find it difficult to keep up with the pace. Modern-day customers may reach out by phone, via email, on social media, or through a live chat. Even text messaging is a effective way to communicate with customers. As Podium states, “Customers prefer texting six times more than traditional live chat.” Virtual call centers employ workers that are comfortable using a host of methods to connect with customers and resolve their issues. Businesses must maintain a quality experience through every customer contact method available and enforce solid communication guidelines among all workers since customers are reaching out in a myriad of ways.
According to Veracity Networks, “Call centers face the ongoing challenge of improving customer satisfaction and lowering costs. While premise equipment vendors can offer a broad set of automatic call distribution, or ACD, functionality, they come at a very high price, require expensive integration and administration investments, and quickly become obsolete as customer contact methods evolve.” More customers are expected to use a variety of contact methods for greater convenience in the future, and businesses must be ready to adapt.
Difficulty in Recruiting Talented Representatives
Hiring the most compatible and talented individuals to execute customer service is key, and many businesses struggle in this area. Customers who contact a poor service agent can negatively brand the whole company due to a single employee’s actions, costing the company valuable clients. Without the best possible customer service talent on the workforce, business owners limit their own expansion and revenue. Delivering bad news to a customer is a challenge that few people can master.
The time and monetary investments that a company must make to adequately train each worker is lost when a customer service representative decides to leave, and this forces the company to find and retrain someone else quickly. With the growing complexity of delivering superb customer service in the modern age, hiring outstanding agents and retaining them is one of the biggest challenges that businesses face. Kate Nasser, a people skills coach warns, “Be wary of job applicants who say they like customer service work because they like being appreciated. When the difficult customers are and the thank yous aren’t, these employees become frustrated and may do poorly. Customer service is about caring for others not about the customers caring for them.”
Overcoming the main challenges surrounding customer service is key for businesses to retain loyal customers and increase their satisfaction. Integrating the right communications technologies is essential to reduce complications. With so many technological changes affecting the avenues that customers can use to reach out, virtual call centers are training professionals to rise to the occasion more quickly than many companies are able to. Implementing a sound customer service strategy is not only critical, but it is also vital for survival. Without a doubt, businesses that offer excellent customer service can outlast competitors that execute inferior methods.
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