Customer Support Software Featured Articles

A company that delivers an experience requiring less effort from the customer, while at the same time providing a superior journey through each interaction, can yield very positive results. Customer support software can help companies create this kind of environment, which is both conducive to agent and company success and customer satisfaction.

According to a recent customer survey conducted by McKinsey, which polled 27,000 U.S. consumers across 44 industries, companies that focused on the customer journey saw an increase in revenue growth of 10-15 percent as well as a 20 percent increase in customer satisfaction. What the McKinsey survey points out is that today’s consumers are more empowered by digital technology with readily available information about virtually every aspect of a product or service. In return, consumers now expect companies to know just as much about them so their needs can be addressed proactively with a personalized experience.

In the past, the value of great customer service was more appreciated by SMBs, presumably because they operate on a smaller scale and can afford to give more time to each customer. This customer attentiveness can translate into greater sales and long term customer retention. As consumers became more empowered with digital technology, the awareness they gained meant they were now more judicious when deciding which businesses to give their money. Customer support software works on the back-end so that help desk teams have a seamless, user-friendly system to run customer service operations. By making the process more streamlined and efficient on the agent’s side, the quality of support possible for customers increases significantly.

The latest study conducted by Nunwood, an international customer experience consultancy focused on ‘full-service’ customer experience management (CEM),  titled “Nunwood’s Customer Experience Excellence” was undertaken in three continents over four years. It identified what it calls Six Pillars that support great customer experience excellence.

According to Nunwood, if properly implemented, the Six Pillars can result in a brilliant customer experience, and if a strong effort is carried out across all six it can: increase acquisition, via advocacy; create long-term shareholder value; and guarantee a market leading customer experience ranking.

The pillars are:

1. Personalization – because today’s consumers now demand to be engaged emotionally, using individualized attention to connect in this way drives customers to  interact more often.

2. Expectations – being able to meet customer expectations is no longer enough. Properly managing as well as exceeding expectations is the starting point in today’s highly personalized customer service.

3. Time and Effort – the time and effort is not addressed to the company, but rather to the customer. If it takes too long with too much effort for the customer to engage, they will look elsewhere.

4. Integrity – granted that is a word that is not easily associated with today’s companies, but organizations that have integrity or the perception of it have better customer loyalty.

5. Resolution – Nunwood states companies that turning a bad experience in to a good one by resolving an issue has a stronger effect on customer loyalty.

6. Empathy – although difficult to get right, having the competency to properly empathize and understand with what the customer is going through emotionally is essential for organizations looking to improve how they deal with their customers.

Whether the organization is an SMB or a global enterprise, the customers they are going after today have many options. Companies that don’t understand this fact and take the necessary steps to engage them properly will likely never see these customers spending their hard earned money with them.

The McKinsey survey concluded by saying customers are now more selective, and they no longer value an average experience as in the past, and their patience for inconsistent delivery is tolerated even less.