Technology has changed many things about our society, but none more so than the way in which we communicate. As such, there has been a certain amount of debate over whether technology is isolating us or bringing us closer together. The answer is not a simple one, but the truth is that technology is whatever you make of it, and in a place of business you can harness it to bring you and your customers closer together to create a more mutually beneficial relationship.
This only works, however, if you can figure out the best way to do it. To help you out, here are three major tips for using technology to improve customer service.
1. Introduce Usable Apps for Customers
Regardless of your company’s product or service, customers want and need information. If they cannot get it easily from you, they will turn to other places to find what they need—of which there are many across the Web. One of the best ways to ease the customer experience across the board is to provide them with a free mobile app. This app should be a one stop shop that allows customers to get information, provides tools and avenues to access your product or service, and helps customers to connect with the company on a broad level, but also individually.
Above all else, you should prioritize usability. If an app is not easily usable to someone with no prior knowledge, they will quickly decide not to waste their time with it.
2. Use Tech to Improve Your Customer Service Training
A lot of people don’t realize that you can also use technology within your company in order to vastly improve customer service (and other) training. In fact, it is something that corporate training companies have been embracing for some time now. What this means is that there are a lot of places where you can get ready-made—but fully customizable—training and e-learning solutions
These LMS allow you to craft a training program that is effective and individual, and which you can tweak and change as needed—as your customers’ needs change, so can your training. It also benefits the employees much more, as they are able to access training modules remotely and pause and pick up training when and where they need. The social aspect of many mobile LMS also means that training is a more naturally interactive process; employees are able to reach you when they need help, and in return you are able to reach out to specific employees who may be struggling in certain areas.
3. Embrace Social Media as a Customer Service Solution
We are long past the time when brands could willfully ignore social media, brushing it off as a passing fad, and hoping that it would disappear sooner rather than later. Furthermore, social media is no longer simply another marketing outlet—or at least, not in the traditional sense of the word, where promotion always goes in one direction.
No, now social media is the main channel for customer service for millions of users daily, and should thus be your company’s main customer service priority. The Internet is littered with examples of companies who found out the hard way just how important the right customer service is on social media—just one mistake can haunt a brand for a long time, and, as everyone knows, nothing ever dies online. Make sure that a large part of your customer service training focuses on brand etiquette for social media.
Technology is not going away anytime soon—it is not going away at all—and anything that is important to your customers should also be important to you. Luckily, you will soon find that it makes your job much easier in the process.
Edited by
Alicia Young
