As customer service software is combined with customer service solutions, customer experience becomes streamlined.

While customer support is difficult, it’s important to keep in mind that what one customer group wants or needs may be different from what another customer group wants or needs. This means finding ways to deliver customer service can be complicated by the sheer number of tools available for companies to use.

There’s no doubt about it – optimizing your customer support tools is a winning game plan for both your business and your clients! While customer service software can make customer care easier, customer experience will only be improved if the customer support tools are used correctly and timely.

Here at LimTC, we’ve learned through direct hands-on experience exactly what to do to optimize our own customer support tools. We want to share some of our tips so you can learn how to get the best out of yours.

Customer Service Software And Tools

Here at LimTC, we believe in providing tools that fit customer needs to be effective when they are used by customer service teams that have customer data at their fingertips.

For example, customer service chatbots – or customer bots – are great for customer service teams that need to automate common customer queries. We’ve found customer bots to be very effective at simplifying repetitive tasks and reducing average ticket times by up to 50%! But they aren’t the right tools for every team.

What you need will depend on your industry, the size of your customer base, and the type of customer care that best suits you. What works for a B2B business might not work for a retail customer service team and vice versa.

To deliver customer service that truly enhances customer experience, customer support teams must be able to prioritize tasks based on customer needs and preferences. Having a wealth of customer support tools is pointless if customer support staff are unaware of the time or date when a customer requires assistance, or can’t properly interact with customers due to outdated technology.

Customer service software can be a great way to save time and money for your business if it’s used with customer data in mind.

How To Optimize Your Tools

To get the best out of customer support tools, customer data needs to first be collected and analyzed. The right customer support tools will depend on the type of customer support your business provides.

Customer data is invaluable in helping customer service teams prioritize customer requests. If a customer prefers a particular type of communication or requires assistance at a specific time of day, customer support tools should be prioritized accordingly.

Customer data can also help you determine which customer support tools are most effective for your customer support team. A customer service chatbot that’s automated to answer frequently asked questions may not be as successful as one that can review customer complaints and issue refunds. Even an advanced customer chatbot will still require customer service staff with customer data to make sure customer needs are met.

Methods for Optimizing your tools

Customer Data

Customer information must be analyzed and used to determine customer service needs, customer preferences, and customer activities.

Customer Feedback

Customers should be surveyed regularly to ensure customer support tools are meeting customer needs.

Manage Customer Support Tools

Make sure your customer support team has access to the right data at the right time in order to manage customer support tools effectively.

Customer Data

Customer data can be obtained from customer surveys, customer tickets, customer communications, and even customer profile information.

Using customer feedback tools will help you determine which customer support tools are most effective for your customer support team. If a chatbot regularly receives the same customer request that could be completed by a human customer service agent, customer support software should be prioritized accordingly.

Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is a great way for customer support teams to determine customer needs and customer preferences, allowing customer support staff to prioritize customer requests.

Manage Customer Tools

Make sure your customer service team has access to the right data at the right time in order to manage customer support tools effectively.

At LimTC, customer care is at the heart of what we do. We help companies find their customer data and use it to deliver an outstanding customer experience. To learn more about how our customer support teams choose and optimize tools according to every specific business needs to boost customer care, stay tuned get in touch.

Leaders play a critical role in ensuring that their workforce is motivated and engaged. Driving results through your team members will help you accomplish your company objectives and stay ahead of the competition. However, do you know why some of your employees are disengaged or unhappy? It might have to do with how they are managed or because they’re not happy about what’s expected from them at work.

In the previous blog, we touched base on a very underestimated subject as burnout specifically in customer support teams. Companies understand that customer experience is a competitive edge but very often underestimate the power of customer support teams.

In fact, organizations with good customer service enjoy up to 20% higher profits.

Customers who have a bad experience when they contact support are known to reduce their spending by 75%. They also tell around 9 to 15 people about it on social media or other review websites. In addition, 56% of unhappy customers will never buy from you again and 66% will stop repurchasing the same product category.

That’s why we see more and more companies using the right tools, processes, and leadership for providing great support and rapid feedback loops to improve collaboration and alignment between marketing, development, and support. But what if all these efforts aren’t enough? What can leaders do before losing talented people?

In this article, we’ll explore some ways to stop attrition rates among customer support teams by focusing leadership on internal vs external factors which affect job satisfaction for this type of workforce.

We believe the first step might be understanding why customer support teams and specifically yours experiencing high churn rates.

As mentioned previously, customer support is a very demanding job. It requires constant shifts between different types of work (tickets, chat, emails, etc), uncertain compensation (depending on company structure and location), strong emotional involvement (with customers or between team members), lack of transparency into the bigger picture, and little recognition for what’s done well.

While there are many things that could contribute to high attrition rates in this field, we can distinguish two broad categories: the internal factors (behaviors of managers/leaders) and external factors (behaviors of upper management toward employees).

Internal Factors

This includes various issues managers might face when leading customer support teams. Let’s break them down!

Poor work-life balance

Support team members live to serve their users 24/7. While it sounds like a noble goal that should be rewarded rather than criticized, in practice, it’s inefficient for your business.

Frequent shifts make it difficult to build a work-life balance outside of their working hours. People who are used to working long hours might be inclined to stay longer once they’re there. In the end, this has a negative impact on productivity. It also impacts personal life as it triggers feelings of guilt from not being present at home or with friends and family.

In addition, few companies allow remote work or flexible schedules that bring additional challenges for team members trying to find a good balance between their professional and private lives.

For example, some teams don’t have email access after a certain time which makes it hard to communicate last-minute urgent matters or requests from users (especially when an issue is occurring).

Low transparency

This issue comes from a lack of communication and understanding of the bigger picture. For example, support staff doesn’t have access to real-time information such as sales numbers, user growth, product usage metrics, etc. This makes it difficult for them to understand what’s expected of their performance and how they contribute to the organization’s success.

When that happens, team members feel like just another cog in the machine with no direct impact on the company’s overall well-doing. They also start feeling less committed and willing to go the extra mile for your customers because they don’t see its value or purpose.

Poor remuneration policy

Your employees might not be able to afford to live in an expensive city where your company is located. This issue has a direct impact on the happiness, dedication, and retention rates of your team members outside of work.

External Factors

On the other hand, there are factors that leaders don’t have any control over but might still contribute to high attrition rates in customer support teams. These include poor company culture, unfair wage differences between departments/positions, micromanagement practices, lack of career advancement opportunities for technical-oriented employees, etc.

To better understand why your people become unhappy or disengaged at work you need to ask them about their concerns and find out what they expect from their leader or manager during their next performance review. That way you can try to address these issues before it’s too late!

If not, you might face the unpleasant scenario of having to go through a round of layoffs in order to restructure your team.

To prevent high attrition rates in customer support teams start by focusing on the internal factors first. The external ones are much harder for you to have an impact on since they depend largely on company leadership’s vision and practices. For that reason, it’s important how managers communicate with their team members about their performance. They should also work actively to build trust-based relationships among employees so that people feel comfortable voicing concerns without being labeled as “complainers”.

Tips for leaders that are easy to begin with, but will have a huge impact:

Offer more transparency:

Open and frequent communication is key to improvement. Make sure your leaders and managers share crucial information with your customer support team members (sales figures, product usage metrics, etc) so that they can understand how what they do contributes to the company’s overall well-being.

Provide career advancement opportunities: show your support staff other paths within the organization for them to explore instead of putting all their eggs in one basket by staying in a role where they don’t have any room for growth or exploration.

Avoid micromanagement practices:

Trust should be at the core of every team member’s experience while working for you. If there are constant requests coming from the top it makes people like they lack autonomy and control over their tasks. That’s a deal-breaker!

Introduce a fair compensation policy:

What you pay for is what you get. And more often than not, people don’t leave jobs because of the salary, but more because they feel undervalued and think it’s time to move on from their current position to something better suited for them.

Don’t expect them to act like robots:

The customer success team represents your business in front of people who require help, but they’re also people with feelings and emotions. If you keep treating them like numbers because it’s easier that way, then you could face major issues down the road.

Treat your staff as individuals instead of generic resources and you’ll be much more successful at retaining them for longer!

As a leader, it’s critical to be aware of internal and external factors that might affect the retention rate of your customer support team. Once you come up with an action plan that addresses these concerns it will be much easier to focus on what really counts: bringing home more customers!

Customer support teams know their product or service in and out because they use it every day to help customers to solve problems. Because they’re in close contact with users, they’re able to gather information about what kinds of issues a user might have with a given solution and how that problem can be resolved. This is a differentiator that can be used in many verticals, but the most successful implementations we’ve seen have been when customer support teams are responsible for gathering this information and creating/delivering the solution by communicating with internal teams.

There are several areas of the business where customer support teams can play a crucial role in boosting demand generation efforts. They have access to valuable information about existing customers that salespeople don’t always see. They’re already on the front lines dealing with customer problems, their perspectives provide an ideal starting point for expanding your reach to new prospects. And third, when you give them the autonomy to work across different departments and get involved in new initiatives, they can go above and beyond simply distributing knowledge to create actual demand.

The power of customer support teams is in their ability to turn their access to customers into something more valuable for the organization. Here are three examples of what our clients have done with customer support teams’ demand generation capabilities:

     Retention campaigns

Customer retention campaigns are usually heavily reliant on data about past behavior, which means they can be difficult to develop and optimize across multiple user segments. Customer support team members know what problems users run into while using your product or service, what types of content might be useful in resolving those issues, how previous ones were resolved (and by whom), and whether there’s a pattern that emerges when you look at all these data points together. This information can give them a leg up on creating high-performance retentions campaigns.

Customer success teams

Customer support teams know your customers and what they need most from you, so they can be an ideal resource for customer success team members who want to better understand their account value and risk level. If a team member has questions about the best way to reach out to a specific user or how data should be segmented, their teammates in customer support can provide that context and help them use the data more effectively.

Internal collaboration

On some occasions, gathering information about existing customers is as simple as having conversations with other people on your team (especially those inside sales reps selling similar solutions). But effective demand generation requires collaboration between multiple teams, from sales and services to management. So it’s important to establish communication channels that can be used to exchange ideas and plan tactics. Customer support teams should serve as a bridge between their organization’s various demand generation efforts, and if they’re encouraged to help create and run campaigns internally (with all the resources needed), they’ll likely become more invested in the company’s growth and success.

     You can’t be everywhere at once

The demand generation process is an ongoing one that requires significant resources to implement properly. Customer support has access to valuable information about current customers, but simply distributing existing knowledge doesn’t create new demand (a strategy only good for maintaining the status quo). To make your demand generation truly successful, you need people who are passionate about growing your customer base and will go the extra mile to help do it.

The customer support team might not have all the tools and the data they need to be successful demand generators. However, once you invest in a process that enables everyone on your team to work collaboratively, cross-functional teams can find creative ways to take advantage of existing assets. When done right, this process will lead to better results for current customers as well as generate new revenue from prospects who may have been overlooked by other demand generation teams.

The question remains: how much effort does it require?

It’s possible to take advantage of existing assets without investing too much time or money into creating new tools or processes. Instead of viewing customer support as a burden, recognize that they’re already helping to educate your customers and resolve their problems. Think of them as an internal consulting team whose knowledge can help your company develop the skills needed for effective demand generation.

How and where to start?

As with any team-based initiative, expect some challenges when you first try to equip everyone with the tools they need to become demand generators. If customer support is doing a good job serving existing customers, their primary focus will be on processes related to managing those accounts—helping you prioritize which tasks should receive more attention than others.

Don’t expect them to know how these activities relate to growing revenue or achieving other goals that might be outside their current responsibilities. It’s important to create healthy dialogue and convey the bigger picture for demand generation so that everyone can understand what you’re trying to accomplish and why it matters.

Reaching out directly to users is usually the most effective way of acquiring new customers, but in some instances, this is not possible or even an option:

• When you need more insight than your existing sources can provide
• When you want to establish a dialogue with your target audience
• When you need information about the people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services

     Because this process will require more collaboration among separate teams, it’s important to establish communication channels that can facilitate collaborative efforts enabling everyone on-board. You can start by asking customer support what types of data they currently have access to, which could help uncover resources previously overlooked. Then ask them how they would use existing assets if demand generation was part of their responsibilities. This should give you an idea about how much time and effort (resources) is required for this change in focus to become successful. Once you’ve figured out where demand generation fits into existing processes, it’s time to build a new one.

The process you implement won’t be the same for every company, but there are some common steps that can help you get started:

    Step 1: Define the goal.

Your first step is to define your end goal for this initiative. What are you trying to accomplish? How will it help customers, your existing customers, or your company as a whole?

For example, let’s say you’re interested in acquiring more leads and getting them qualified earlier in the process so that they can turn into paying customers more quickly. Your goal might be: To increase the number of leads that our sales team qualifies before they even reach out to prospects. This means they’ll spend more time talking with people who are already familiar with our brand and products instead of wasting time on tire-kickers who aren’t likely to pay full price for anything we offer.

Step 2: Identify the current process.

Now that you know what your goal is, it’s time to map out the steps involved in achieving it. Who needs to do what? How often? Why? What happens if there are roadblocks or setbacks along the way? Who owns each step and how could they make it easier (or harder)? Keeping track of different people’s responsibilities helps ensure that everyone knows (and agrees) who has which role and that no one person becomes a bottleneck for progress.

    Step 3: Determine where demand generation fits into this process and why?

Once you’ve mapped out all of your current activities, look for places where demand generation can be inserted without getting in anyone’s way. If you’re not sure, try using a simple process map to visualize how different tasks connect to each other and why they matter.

    Step 4: Change the process.

Now that you have a good idea of where demand generation fits into your current processes and why it’s necessary, it’s time to come up with a new strategy based on what makes sense for your business and customers. For example, maybe now is the right time to start generating more leads from social media or upgrading your blog from a simple web page to a full-fledged content marketing platform. It could also make sense for customer support representatives to offer assistance as part of their service rather than waiting for users to ask directly if they need help with something related to your product.

    Step 5: Measure and communicate results.

As you implement your new process, it’s important to be sure that everyone knows what success looks like and how they can contribute to achieving it. Some of the most common metrics used for measuring demand generation include email click-through rates, lead volume, website traffic, social media engagement numbers, and more. These stats should help everyone feel as if their hard work is paying off. And once you’ve achieved those goals or even before, make sure to update your processes so that the next group of people will have an easier time following in your footsteps.   

    Step 6: Repeat with a new goal.

Once you’ve made your changes and achieved the success you were hoping for, it’s time to plan ahead for the next step in demand generation. What kinds of leads do you want to focus on? Where are they coming from? How will this help everyone in your company achieve their goals?

and more…

Demand generation is a process in which companies use various tactics to generate demand for their products or services by targeting potential customers over time. You can start with your existing customers by customer support teams.

Hope this blog will help you to think out of the box about demand generation and how it can be a core competence for your customer support team.

   In the past few years, there has been an explosion of companies looking into their customers’ journeys through digital services or products that they offer. And for good reason – understanding your customers’ journeys allows you to really get a handle on why people come to you, what problems they have that they’re trying to solve, and what keeps them coming back. The more thoroughly you understand these things as marketers and as product designers, the better equipped you become as business professionals with valuable insights into user behavior. If you’ve done any research into customer journey mapping, you might have seen blog posts from companies that provide clear steps to creating an effective customer journey map. While these guides are useful for getting the idea of a customer journey fresh in your mind, they don’t go into enough detail about how you can apply them specifically to your own needs.

There is no “right” way of going through each of these steps – they’re simply tools that help you brainstorm, organize, and discuss the different aspects of your audience’s individual journeys. Rather than assuming that one particular guide or tool is the correct method for everyone, we recommend taking a step back from anyone’s thought-stopping idea surrounding customer journey analysis and looking at it objectively so you can come up with an approach that works best for your own business. What this means is not being afraid to discard ideas if they don’t work well for you.

What is a Customer Journey?

We all know that customers need to be engaged and entertained, but we often forget the importance of engaging and entertaining them throughout their entire journey with us. The entire customer life cycle has the goal of keeping the user coming back to you for more interactions, whether it be to buy something or otherwise.

Customer journeys are maps that plot out your users’ experiences with your business across digital platforms (and sometimes even physical ones like brick-and-mortar stores). While there’s no “right” way of mapping this journey, but there are six steps to go through:

Customer Journey Mapping: How To Do It Right

1- Customer Journey Data Collection

          Whether you’re doing it digitally or in person, the customer journey begins with data collection. This is where you gather information about your users’ habits and answer questions like: Are there any notable patterns in their behavior? What are the most common paths they take through each part of the journey? What are the obstacles that prevent them from progressing?

2- Identifying Problems & Opportunities

             After collecting this data, you’ll need to begin making sense of what it all means by using your findings to identify problems and opportunities. For example, if there’s a specific part in the user journey that shows that people often abandon after “Step 2,” then maybe that’s an opportunity for creating content that educates users better. This stage of the process is perhaps the most crucial since it’s where you begin to learn how your business can actually solve problems for users.

3- Create a New Customer Journey Map

                 With this knowledge in hand, you can create a new customer journey map that organizes and visualizes all of the data collected earlier in preparation for creating content. This part is generally more straightforward since you’ll be drawing out different paths for each step in the journey. For example, one path might feature an “unaware” state while another features an “aware” state.

 4-  Map your customer journey using your data

Once you have your blueprint laid out, then you’re able to move onto creating the actual customer journey map. This is where you begin identifying which actions should be included in each step, but also the content that should go along with them to help users get through their journey successfully.

5- Develop Content based on your data

                  Once you have your customer journey mapped out, then it’s time to start creating content that relates back to what you’ve learned by using it during the process of mapping. You’ll need to figure out how this new content can help users get through specific steps in their journeys without tripping up while they’re at it.

6- Monitor Your Customers’ Journeys

               The final step in this process is to monitor how these changes are affecting your users. You can do this by simply testing the new content, but also analyzing any quantitative data that you’ve collected (or trust!) about your customers. If you’re able to identify or create a pattern here, then you’ll be able to make better strategic decisions regarding future products and iterations of the customer journey map.

By mapping out your customer journey, you can learn more about how to keep users engaged with your product. Studies have shown that most people abandon a website after roughly 6 seconds of being on it, making that initial “engagement” all the more important. By following these six steps, then you’ll be able to identify opportunities for improving this engagement and keeping users coming back for more!

Thank you very much for reading and please share this article with your friends if you find it helpful.

As we move into 2022, we will no doubt see an increasing number of businesses look to exploit the potential that blockchain technology offers and use it to enhance their customer experience (CX).

Blockchain is most commonly associated with cryptocurrency, but in recent months there have been a number of announcements from major companies looking at how blockchain can be used in different areas of the business. The technology offers the ability to share information via a distributed ledger, meaning it’s trusted by members of the network without the need for any middlemen – once information is on there, it cannot be altered or changed.

Blockchain Applications And Implications For CX:

As such, implementing blockchain technology into a company’s processes means the data it uses is more trustworthy. As well as this, because of its decentralized nature, it can enable customers to take control of their own data rather than remain at the mercy of companies that hold their data. For example, Walmart is using blockchain technology in order to improve food tracking and safety by making use of tamper-proof and transparent ledgers so customers can see where their food has come from. This allows people to choose whether or not they want to purchase certain products based on this information – so if you were worried about pesticide residues in your product, you might be concerned to learn that a product was handled by a supplier that experienced a breach in their food safety management system.

This gives more of an incentive for companies to protect customer data and make it transparent – if the data is already on a decentralized network, extensive security measures cannot be taken to keep the information away from prying eyes as this would render the whole concept useless.

It also allows customers to take control of their data and choose if they want certain information shared – for instance, it may be advantageous for some people to share some health data in order to receive tailored medical advice.

Companies can also use blockchain technology to create new types of loyalty programs that give the power back to the customer. With an increasing number of businesses experimenting with cryptocurrency, consumers could soon have a wide range of ways in which they can be rewarded for their spending habits, such as receiving discounts when shopping at different stores or earning coins by taking part in market research surveys or interacting with companies on social media. A company could even reward customers with coins based on how long they’ve been a member of the brand’s community – this would allow customers to accumulate their coins over time, before using them to pay for a product or service once its value had grown. Customers could even potentially exchange these cryptocurrencies with each other or use them in different ways outside of the brand’s ecosystem, depending on how creative companies are willing to get.

Advantages Of Using Blockchain For CX:

Blockchain offers a number of advantages when it comes to customer experience, such as:

• Full Transparency – companies are able to provide more transparency, as it’s easier for them to make their data trustworthy via blockchain technology.

• Stable Security – because of its decentralized nature, companies are better equipped against cyberattacks and there is no one point of failure with blockchain technology.

• Reduced Costs – using a distributed ledger means that the need for intermediaries is reduced or even eliminated altogether, which can potentially save businesses money in terms of transaction fees. This also has an impact on customer service, as staff may be able to deal with issues more quickly without having to wait on hold.

• Greater Convenience – customers have access to their own data so they can control how much information they want to share with brands, thus increasing the convenience of shopping online.

• New Forms Of Incentives – customers are rewarded for interacting with companies, which encourages them to remain loyal to brands that they trust and believe in. It also gives them more of an incentive to share their personal information.

• More Creativity – because blockchain technology enables greater interoperability within ecosystems, companies are able to create more creative products that can be used by multiple different stakeholders. For example, a customer might be able to use coins earned through one company on another brand’s platform or give these coins as gifts to friends or family members.

• Greater Insights – because blockchain allows for a more detailed audit trail, businesses are able to obtain better data about their customers and how they use their products or services.

• Easier Sharing Of information – it’s easier for companies to share information when there is a decentralized network behind them, as blockchain makes it easier to trust the data being shared by different stakeholders.

• Better Customer Service – having access to decentralized and accurate records means that staff can resolve issues quickly and efficiently and customers can go about their day without having to wait on hold for extended periods of time.

• More Personalization – the interoperability of blockchain makes it easier for brands to create products that are able to interconnect with other platforms, resulting in a better customer experience.

• New Business Models  – businesses have access to cheaper transaction fees due to reduced intermediaries, which can enable new types of business models. Reduced costs allow companies to find ways around the “one size fits all” approach and offer more tailored services as a result.

• More Innovation  – companies have the opportunity to create new business models that can unlock new markets. Because of this, they are able to experiment more with different ways of delivering their products and services which help them stay ahead of the competition.

Disadvantages Of Using Blockchain For CX:

On the other hand, there are some potential disadvantages in regard to the customer experience when companies utilize blockchain technology. For example:

• More Complex – the fact that blockchain is a relatively new and ambitious technology means that it can add complexity to businesses and make it harder for them to truly understand how this tech works. Another downside is that there aren’t many experts in this area when compared with something like artificial intelligence (AI) or robotics. This means that most employees won’t have much knowledge about what they’re selling and may not be able to explain anything beyond simple facts and figures.

• Scalability Issues  – just like cryptocurrencies, there is a huge issue with scalability that needs to be addressed. Blockchain is not currently able to handle the number of transactions that companies like Visa and Mastercard can process on a daily basis, therefore making it difficult for them to use this technology as their main service delivery platform.

• High energy Consumption – by operating on a decentralized network, blockchain technology can cause high levels of electricity consumption which has an impact not only on the environment but also cost due to increased expenses. It will take some time before there are any breakthroughs in terms of increasing efficiency or finding alternative sources of energy for this form of tech.

• Lack of Regulation  – because this is still a relatively new area of technology there are no industry tests or guidelines in place to protect consumers when utilizing blockchain’s capabilities. Even though there are some self-regulatory mechanisms currently in place (e.g. KYC), people should still remain wary when making financial decisions due to the uncertainty surrounding where their coins will end up if something happens to them (e.g. if they lose their password).

Industries Set To Benefit From The Blockchain:

There are numerous industries that could potentially benefit from utilizing blockchain technology such as:

Banking, Healthcare, Education, Retail, Real Estate, Entertainment, Gaming, Transportation, Energy, and Manufacturing.

A few businesses that already utilize blockchain technology:

There are a number of companies, both big and small, who have been leveraging blockchain to improve their business offering. These include Microsoft, Samsung, IBM, Maersk, Alibaba, Overstock.com, Walmart, Red Bull Media House.

How can digital service providers leverage blockchain technology to enhance their customer experience?  

Some companies have even gone as far as using Ethereum’s ERC-20 tokens within their platform which allows them to create their own currency. This makes it possible for people to trade supplies, products, and services on one platform and easily exchange currencies with each other without having to go through an exchange.

There are also decentralized hedge funds that use the Ethereum network which gives investors more options in terms of where they put their money.

As you can see, blockchain is a very versatile form of technology and it has the power to make almost anything more efficient, secure, and streamlined. This is why experts believe that when fully implemented across society, it could be the foundation for a new model of economic and social organization.

It is still an emerging technology and it will take some time before we see the full potential of this incredible innovation. However, regardless of if companies use “private chains” or opt to utilize other decentralized peers to peer (P2P) systems like Ripple, it’s clear that this is the direction that companies are heading when it comes to their digital service offerings.

As A Business Process Outsourcing Company, Why Should We Care?

In short, blockchain is something that any kind of business that interacts with consumers should consider implementing into their service delivery model. This includes outsourcing companies who are looking to enhance their customer service experience by making it efficient, trustworthy, and quick.

Most companies will not be able to afford to develop or maintain their own Customer Support, or Back-Office teams which is why outsourcing their needs to a company like ours makes the most sense. We have extensive knowledge of industry standards as well as business process management methodologies that can help your company quickly integrate new forms of technology into your business model.

What are your thoughts on how blockchain can change the customer experience? Do you think that companies will adopt the technology in the near future or is it something that will take some time to develop? Let us know in the comments below.

This article was written collaboratively by Paul Pokotylo and Burak Turk from the Marketing and Business Development teams on behalf of LimTC.

Our mission is to provide you with the information you need on trending topics that we see will have an impact on Customer Experience with a focus on the technology involved. To stay up to date on subjects that interest you, follow us on social media and check out our blog.

Let’s be honest, there is no one who wants to go through the hassle of customer service. It can be a headache and it can take time away from your busy day. However, this doesn’t have to happen! There are ways you can make sure that your customers are satisfied with their experience. We’re here to show you 6 steps that will help create better customer experiences for everyone involved.

1. Make it easier for the customer to reach you.

Have a customer service phone number that is easy to find on your site. Make sure you have ways for customers to contact you online, such as email and chat support. This will make it easier for them because they can reach you at any time of day without having to wait on hold or call back multiple times. You’ll also be able to answer any questions they have right away, which will help them feel more confident in your services.

– Customer Service Phone Number: 123-456-7890

– Email Address for Support: support@business.com

– Live Chat Online at all times: chat.business.com

2. Put your contact information on all of your marketing materials or any other engagement channels

It can be frustrating to customers when they visit your site and don’t know how to contact customer service. This will lead them down the path of frustration, which is why it’s so important that your contact information is easy to find on all of your marketing materials and website pages. This way, they will have the opportunity to call you or email you before becoming frustrated with themselves for not being able to reach customer support in a timely manner.

3. Offer 24/7 support so that customers can contact you at any time

It’s more than likely that your customer service department is not open 24/hours a day, which may make some customers feel like you don’t care. This is why it’s so important to offer 24/hour support for all of your customers so they know that you are always available when they need you the most.

4. Include a live chat feature on your website so that customers can talk with a representative without having to wait on hold or complete an online form

Customers are always looking for instant gratification that they can’t get from customer service. They want to talk with a representative without having to wait on hold or fill out an online form, which is why live chat features like the one we offer here at Business.com make it easy and fast for them to contact you as soon as possible.

5. Develop a customer feedback loop that can be used to improve the customer experience

If you want to create a better customer experience, then it’s important that you listen to customer feedback. This means listening to what they have to say and how your service can be improved. You should also use this information as an opportunity for growth and improvement because if the majority of customers are having issues with something in particular (for example shipping), then you should focus on improving that specific area.

– Ask for customer feedback through surveys or social media posts and monitor the responses to see where your customers are having trouble with certain aspects of service (for example shipping). This will allow you to see what they need in order to have a better experience, which can help lead you to make the necessary changes.

– If you see that there is a common complaint (for example shipping) then it may be helpful to investigate and find out why this is happening so frequently. This will help you determine what needs to change in order for your customers to have better customer experiences when they are doing business with you.

– You should also take this feedback and look for ways to improve it in order to create a better customer experience.

– If you are using surveys, then be sure that your questions pertain specifically to the topic of customer service so they will be more useful.

– The social media posts should also focus on what customers want from their online shopping experiences as well as their thoughts on customer service. This will give you a better idea of what they want and need in order to have an improved experience when purchasing from your company.

– When it comes to surveys, be sure that the questions are specific so your customers can provide more useful feedback (like “What is most important for you about shopping online?”).

6. Provide quick responses – don’t leave them waiting around for days without hearing back from someone

It is important to be clear with your customers about turnaround time. For example, if it takes you 24 hours to respond back to them after they submit a request then let them know that this will happen so there are no surprises for anyone involved in the process. This way, your customer service will stand out from the rest because people want their concerns addressed as soon as possible.

– Provide a customer service email address that customers can use to contact you about their requests or issues and make sure they know when they will receive a response back from the company. You may need to let them know how long it typically takes for your staff members to get back in touch with each other, but it is important to be clear with this so there are no surprises.

– If you have a phone line for customer service, then provide an automated response that will tell them when they can expect a call back from the company as well. This makes it easier for everyone involved and ensures your customers know what to expect in terms of turnaround time.

– Customer service should always be a priority, but this doesn’t mean you can ignore it either. If your customer service isn’t up to par then you may end up losing customers and that will lead to decreased revenue in the long run.

– Put a plan into action for how quickly you respond back to requests so that all of your customers know what to expect.

– If a customer has an issue and you’re able to provide them with a solution, then do your best to keep in contact with the customer so they will feel that their issue is being addressed appropriately.

I hope you found these tips helpful and that they can help improve your customer service experience. If you want to share any other topics we should cover in our next blog, let us know!

Customers’ experiences have an impact on how they perceive your business and your brand. Service is the core point of your business’s success. Everyone knows the importance of a happy customer that will not only return to you but always give positive feedback and bring new customers along.

Let’s see what’s new in Customer Service Technology & Trends for the 2021s.

Each year customer service and support leaders identify their strategic priorities and investments for the year ahead, but due to covid-19 and its lasting ramifications, things are changing rapidly and it’s important to move along with the new requirements of Customers. Service and support face increased pressure from competitors on the role of the service function in improving operational excellence and growing the business. The main support for effective customer service is a combination of tools, systems, and processes to convert policies into customer satisfaction.

It starts with equipping your agents with all tools that they need to provide a top-notch customer experience, including:

• Up to date software
• Enhanced training 
• More accessible customer data
• Specific feedback
• Clear process documentation and flexible guidelines

In 2020 the Customer Service department had to readjust their employees to remote work. This transition had a huge impact on customer service trends in 2021. Remote work will most likely become a more permanent strategy due to the current situation worldwide and the new opportunity of cost savings due to the remote workforce for business owners. 

In fact, 89% of UK contact center leaders say that the COVID-19 crisis has changed the industry forever. A recent industry survey supports this view of a long-term work-from-home transition.  35% of contact center leaders now think that their contact centers will become mainly homeworking. And a higher percentage, 58%, think homeworking will be partly optional and partly compulsory. 

Either way, the busy on-premise contact center of the past is set to give way to a more flexible and remote work culture.

As for trends, Service became a sales tool in 2021.

Omnichannel communication with customers is a top priority today. Customers want to reach you immediately with great convenience, meaning being able to choose a convenient contact form like live-chat on a business website or have multiple choices of mobile messengers depending on the preferences of the consumer and get an immediate reply independent of the device type.  A true omnichannel approach includes the ability to deliver a seamless and consistent experience across a variety of communication channels. So if your company is not operating with omnichannel communication, now is the time to adapt.

Since not all customer service departments work 24-7, developers took it one step further by inventing chat-bots. But this option lost its popularity within a short period of time.  Custer’s enjoy interacting with actual human beings since chatbots lack intelligence and are able to solve only the basic requirements of customers, so they are revealed with ease.  So creating a chatbot for your customers today should only be to generalize the question of your customer and lead the conversation to a responsible employee or department. It’s also good to have a chatbot to answer the most common questions or to gather contact information to get back to the customer during working hours. They are a necessary asset today as well, but nothing in comparison to actual human interaction. 

Let’s not forget about social media. Its popularity increased among some of the largest companies in the world as a way to foster customer communication and share the latest products with its potential customers. Social media is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ channel, it’s an essential tool. Companies that spread their brand on social media are archiving greater value of new customers and benefits as well as customer satisfaction and increased retention. In 2021, social media will only become more and more important as a tool to share information, communicate with customers, and retain users.

Today the market is growing rapidly, and as customers have more options, service becomes part of the product experience. Companies are focused on customer’s desire for a better customer experience. The E-commerce market was already growing before Covid, but that growth was accelerated by the pandemic to deal with increased demand. More businesses needed more help services from B2B companies.

The world stands right in front of a new era, and we need to make sure to be up to date with all the new features and services to keep our existing customers happy and have new customers join. The world stands right in front of a new era, and we need to make sure to be up to date with all the new features and services to keep our existing customers happy and have new customers join. 

Unlike years prior, this new type of conversational commerce is much bigger than just offering live chat. That’s part of it, but consumers now want to be able to connect with your brand immediately on their preferred platform — whether it’s Facebook, WhatsApp, email, etc. The right tools will allow you to deliver a unified customer experience and treat all channels as equal — prioritizing queries based on importance. 

As always, customer reviews play a massive role in success

• Quick resolutions
• Helpful and empathetic agents
• 24/7 support
• Being able to use preferred channels
• Proactive support

Summary of trends 2021:

1.  Building teams with support agents who can work remotely

3.  Providing personalized customer experiences

4.  Delivering real-time support through live chat and chatbots

5.  Customer-centric success strategies 

6.  Mastering social media as a support channel

As previously mentioned, we stand right in front of a new era, and there are more changes to come within the near future. For some industries, this means having to change up the whole business plan and readjust or in the worst-case scenario close their business completely. 

For them, it means a second chance, and if they play their cards right, a bright future.

The outsourcing model has drastically changed during the past few years for good, evolving to providing the best service in every possible way and channel.  

Outsourcing, of course, can be a great way to drive your business forward in a more effective and faster environment by allowing you to use your company resources for more profitable ventures.

Every business has different requirements and reasons for outsourcing, but commonly businesses get the most value and productivity out of their outsourcing operations with a well-structured plan and experienced partner.

To help you get started, we worked hard on coming up with these 7 actions to develop an outsourcing plan that moves you forward to success.

Define Clear Goals

Always start with the big picture and deeply understand both strategic and tactical points with all your stakeholders. Defining the level of requirements, clear work descriptions, and internal and external processes are where you should start. 

Considering all details around your company goals will help you to prepare your business for better results. 

Identify Your Needs

When you’re outsourcing your business, your business needs have to be crystal clear that you create a list of what you are expecting to get from outsourcing your business processes. You should also identify what processes you need to outsource and what your reasons are for doing so.

Evaluate The Risks

Businesses should look to maximize value while minimizing risk when engaging with an outsourcing model, by considering the risk and value associated with the people, process, and systems involved. Prioritizing your needs and evaluating the risks around is always give you the peace of mind you deserve, better safe than sorry.

Create a business plan

Outlining effective responsive communication plans

Set your business budget

Assess the geographical risks

Choose The Right Partner

Most outsourcing companies talk of vast expertise and top-notch talent, but is there any credibility to their words? Choosing the right partner can make boost your business to the greatest success or it can cause management, cultural, and other unseen issues. Here is a short checklist to be done without any further ado.

Communication & collaboration

Business reputation

Cost efficiency

Case Studies

Technical Expertise

Workforce evaluation

Check Infrastructure and technologies

Set Routine Checks

Routine checks do not only make your business trackable but also help you to understand pain points, success stories, and sets the ground to become responsible for all your important business decisions consistently. Especially for outsourced workforces, creating routine control methodologies and reports will increase efficiency.

Ongoing Training And Employee Development

Providing training and development to employees allows employers to pinpoint the knowledge and skills they want their employees to have. Training and development programs can educate employees about new skills or provide updates on existing skills to enhance productivity. When you outsource your workforce, the employees will still be representing your company. Your outsourcing partner should understand this sensitive aspect of your and continuously provide required training to all employees. 

Outsourcing offers companies the ability to focus on their main competencies and delegate essential tasks to others. This can move companies toward growth by investing more time for leadership to innovate. Outsourcing is a viable solution for all business models at any stage that are looking to scale their businesses and save money in the process.

You might feel overwhelmed by all the information, outsourcing is easy to manage and success-oriented model by choosing the right partner and can be a boost for your business mid-long term strategical plans.

If you are seeking an ideal outsourcing partner? Have more questions before ensuring your decision? Let our team guide and help you with your business success by contacting us.