It is very important not to make your customers wait; otherwise, they will think you disrespect their time and that will lead to frustration. If you want to stay competitive, make things easier for customers whenever you can. Where might you look in order to eliminate any friction? An article on the business2community.com website suggests where you should start.
Eliminating friction
- Duration: Customers don’t like to wait. Don’t leave them on hold for customer support. It doesn’t matter how sincerely you might apologise or explain: having to wait is always annoying.
- Be consistent: Lack of consistency, especially giving inconsistent information, is a major flaw. If you communicate contradictory pieces of information to customers, you will lose their trust.
- Don’t make them retell their life story: If they are forced to explain repeatedly what the problem is, they will find dealing with your customer support a real pain. The same applies to a customer being transferred to someone else in customer service. Your employees should have an information system allowing them quickly to find the customer’s history: calls, purchases, and other interactions with the company – everything should be there.
- Empowerment: Empower customers to take control of their situation by offering self-service tools. If properly deployed, such tools make self-service quick and efficient.
In the future, companies will also start exploring the possibilities of technological capabilities to offer timely support based on predictions.
-jk-