Customer service is having a moment – a bifurcated moment, to be sure, but a moment nonetheless.
Tales of amazing customer service during COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions abound: a UPS store owner driving 2,500 miles to deliver a package, a butcher delivers food to homes, and a Washington, D.C., shoe store takes an assortment of shoes to a woman whose Mother’s Day tradition of buying a pair was interrupted by the virus.
Those heartwarming successes are but outliers, which is why they make the news.
Meanwhile, customer service is suffering from crashing CSAT scores. Of course they’re down. Which of us hasn’t been on the phone for seemingly endless periods of time (if you can get through at all), only to have an automatic message tell you to go to an unnavigable website for answers.
Supply chains disrupted, fewer ways to address issues, payment relief is needed, and increased tensions all translate to higher call and web volumes. Meanwhile, many customer service agents are struggling to work at home or in smaller on-site groups. All of us – employees and customers – are overwhelmed.
McKinsey, the global management consulting company, says that preparing for changes in customer expectations and consumer behavior includes, “focusing on care and connection; meeting customers where they are today; reimagining CX for a post-COVID-19 world; and building capabilities for a fast-changing environment.”
That’s all good and well. But how does one do that?
Relevance is the key to meeting these customer service challenges. And companies like Connectwise, athenahealth, and Fuze have each turned to AI-powered search to create highly relevant and hyper-personalized experiences.
Fuze, the cloud communications platform and collaboration software, increased its case deflection rate and decreased calltime by 12 percent. What’s more, it saw its CSAT score rise from 4.2 to 4.5 (out of 5) during the pandemic – all through relevant search results. The healthcare giant athenahealth, fortuitously implemented a knowledge-centered service (KCS) approach in March. It saw case deflection rates go way down this summer!
“Relevance is a key tenet in search,” says Mark Floisand, SVP Product Marketing, Coveo. “However, when you combine advanced search technologies, volumes of data, and AI, you are able to provide relevant experiences across the business, at scale. Machine learning models continuously adapt and improve recommendations based on observing what works – what generates a good outcome – and that just can’t be tuned by hand.”
To help enterprises understand success stories like these and prepare for what is seemingly endless change, Coveo created the Relevance 360 conference, a virtual event being held Thursday, Oct, 29.
Whether you’re responsible for digital commerce experiences, online support, or workplace knowledge management, one thing is universal: Customer expectations are at an all-time high, and you have one click to be relevant. Meet these digital leaders who have met the heightened demands of today’s users – and boosted all their favorite engagement metrics.
These include the charismatic cultural icon (and Netflix CMO) Bozoma Saint John and best-selling author and digital guru Seth Godin.
These leaders are becoming more relevant to their customers – and employees – in a rapidly changing digital world. You can do it too. This virtual event is free, so register today at Relevance 360.
About the author: Diane Burley is a veteran digital transformation expert, and the chief storyteller for Coveo.
Edited by
Erik Linask
