Treat people right and your business will get rewarded. According to the Sixth Annual State of Service Report, 88% of customers say good customer service makes them more likely to purchase again. And good means more than simply picking up the phone when they call. It means offering digital customer service where they can connect anytime, in multiple ways.
Instead of dialling into a contact center, customers want an effortless means of reaching out for help. They’re already spending much of their time online, which makes digital channels a natural conduit for instant communication and convenience.
Digital customer service not only meets customers where they are but simplifies the process of asking questions, troubleshooting product and service issues, and resolving complaints.
What is Digital Customer Service?
Digital customer service is an approach to supporting the people who do business with a company through all the relevant channels and touchpoints available online. These contact methods include live chat, SMS and text message services, messaging apps, social media, email, virtual assistants, chatbots, and self-service portals.
Customers’ biggest complaint about traditional forms of customer service is the time they spend waiting, whether lining up in person at a physical location or staying on hold. Digital customer service offers an entirely different paradigm, where customers can get answers and advice right away.
Serving customers through digital channels is also more convenient. Customers can engage within applications they know and love. Instead of talking on the phone, employees can often assist multiple customers simultaneously.Best of all, digital customer service delivers on the promise of providing an outstanding customer experience. Customers get their problems solved quickly, simply, and in a personalized way, deepening their relationship with a brand. Plus, they have more time to enjoy the products and services they choose.
How Important Digital Customer Service Is to Business Success
Digital customer service makes customers happier and leads to a more successful business. Salesforce research shows high-performing organizations provide service across a broader range of channels than underperformers.
Managing contact centers is expensive and complex, and using digital channels can help reduce costs. Businesses can also introduce self-service options through digital channels to significantly reduce their employees’ workload.By providing higher calibre service to more customers in less time, companies that lean on digital tools and platforms build greater customer loyalty. These benefits are available to companies of every kind, including small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that want to compete with larger firms’ customer service.
How to Build an Effective Digital Customer Service Strategy
Technology may be transforming how businesses connect with customers and offer support, but effectively using it depends on developing a solid digital customer service strategy.
Your approach may vary depending on the kind of business or sector you operate in, but start with the following areas to create an actionable, results-driven plan:
Evaluate your existing customer service operation
You probably already have an existing customer service strategy. Now’s your chance to take a step back and see where it falls short and how using digital channels and tools could close any gaps.
Study customer service key performance indicators (KPI) like average response time, average handle time, and first contact resolution. Consider where bringing service to digital channels could help improve performance. Bring in voice-of-the-customer research, such as feedback surveys, to get a clearer picture of how customers feel about your service.
Identify the most popular and relevant digital touchpoints
Your customers are likely using several digital channels that could become appropriate avenues for extending your customer service offering. Go beyond assumptions and gut instinct by consulting market research to gauge your customers’ preferred means of communication (read on to see Salesforce’s data on the most popular digital channels). Or ask your customers by fielding your own survey.
You can also reverse engineer this process in some cases. Look internally for instances where customers used a corporate email account dedicated to marketing or sales functions to make service requests. Check public posts and direct messages on branded social accounts to see whether they’ve tried to get help there.
Prioritize self-service by making it easy and flexible
Customers often run into the same kinds of problems. When service employees repeat information over and over again, it takes them away from solving more complex problems. No wonder 61% of customers would rather use self-service for simple issues, according to Salesforce research.
It’s empowering to give customers tools to figure out product troubleshooting and company policies on their own, especially via digital channels.
Think about how you can establish a robust online knowledge centre that answers frequently asked questions (FAQs) and develop assets like explainer videos and infographics that walk customers through the process of fixing common issues. Artificial intelligence (AI) takes self service to a new level, an opportunity we’ll explore later in this post.
Unify customer information to provide greater service efficiency
Adopting digital channels won’t get you very far if employees are searching across many different sources to track down critical information. Deploy an integrated digital business platform that can automate customer service tasks by centralizing data.
Durabuilt Windows and Doors is a good example of what an integrated platform can do for your company. The company gained a 360-degree view of its customers by bringing everything together in one platform to boost service efficiency by up to 70%.
Use digital tools to enhance employee as well as customer experiences
Customer service staff may be accustomed to working in the same way, with the same toolset, for a long time. Position your expansion into digital channels as a way to help them manage their workload and respond to customers more effectively.
Have a discussion with team members early on about any platforms where they’ll spend a lot of time. Encourage them to share where processes become bottlenecked or tools fail to deliver. Build in enough time to properly train them not only on any new tools but also on how digital channels are changing customer expectations.
Translate what ‘omnichannel’ means from a customer service perspective
Customers will be eager to use digital customer support channels once they’re aware of them. That’s why you need to have a solid communications plan in place. Use various methods — for instance, a social media post, a text message, or an email newsletter with links to customer portals and self-service sites — to share how they can connect beyond a phone call.
Having a presence across all these digital touchpoints is core to offering an omnichannel experience, but customers may not recognize that term. Make connecting easy for them by including links to many ways to engage with your company wherever they seek help.
Monitor digital customer service experiences and continuously optimize
Revisit the metrics and KPIs we discussed earlier based on how your customers are interacting with your team via digital channels. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Effort Score (CES) are other examples worth tracking. You should start to see some impact before long. Capture and share positive results with relevant stakeholders to boost morale and sustain momentum.
If performance isn’t improving, consider where you could optimize the digital experience. You may need to double down on customer communication, provide staff additional training, introduce new technologies, or change how you use existing tools.
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Top Digital Customer Service Channels
Executing your strategy doesn’t mean cutting off phone and email as service options, at least not right away. The Sixth Annual State of Service Report found both phone calls and email are still the most popular channels among 90% of consumers. That’s probably because it’s what customers know best. In-person service was cited by 84%, probably for the same reason.
The same research proves it pays to adopt new channels quickly: 87% of high performers adopted live chat compared to 60% of underperformers. That discrepancy makes sense given that 81% of consumers cited online chat and live support as a key digital channel.
Social media was nearly as popular, cited by 82% of customers, which explains why 87% of high performers adopted social media compared to 65% of underperformers. Messenger apps proved similar: 79% of customers cited them as a key digital channel, and 84% of high performers adopted them to provide service compared to 59% of underperformers.
Messenger apps deserve more attention because they reflect activity across a wide number of services. Salesforce research shows Facebook Messenger as the most popular option among 59% of those surveyed, followed by WhatsApps at 55% and Google Business Messages at 54%.
However, Instagram Direct Messenger and dedicated messaging apps like Telegram and Apple Business Chat were in the 25% to 29% range. This discrepancy is another example of why you should try to get a strong sense of your customers’ preferred touchpoints as you build your digital customer service strategy.
Even if you don’t immediately extend service into every available channel, consider a phased approach to ensure you leave no stone unturned. Salesforce research found most channels appealed to a majority of customers. For example, 82% cited customer portals, 81% cited text and SMS, 78% cited mobile apps, and 77% cited video support as key channels.
Online communities and forums, knowledge bases and even the metaverse could become standard channels where customers expect to find help. Establish a roadmap to show up wherever you’re needed.
How to Leverage AI for Better Customer Support
Customers will appreciate your business responding and reacting to their requests. What makes for truly transformative digital customer service is anticipating those needs.
Proactive service is now possible thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). Instead of just working through the queue, AI can continuously learn from customer data and real-time interactions and get in front of issues before they happen. Proactive service creates a level of trust that drives greater customer retention and loyalty.
Other opportunities to enhance digital customer service with AI include:
Automating routine tasks
AI can make it fast and easy to route product documentation and polices via digital channels. It can also assist on the backend in summarizing transcripts of customer conversations through social media, messaging apps, and other touchpoints to help you better understand areas where they’re running into problems.
Personalizing service interactions to deepen relationships
Customers feel valued when recognized as individuals, particularly if they’ve been spending with you for a while. AI can help employees see purchase histories and other details to save customers from repeating information they feel companies should already know. Generative AI can also help craft personalized responses to questions and concerns through digital channels.
Using chatbots as frontline responders
Customers often reach out because they’re struggling to understand a return policy, use a specific product feature, or update their account profiles. AI can simplify processes, streamline workflows, and provide self-service options in these areas for greater efficiency.
Adding autonomous agents to assist customers 24/7
Customer service employees already work hard, and eventually, they need to take breaks and log off. By complementing their efforts with autonomous agents, you can build a limitless digital labour force that can reason and think through complex, multi-step questions and take the next best action across any system or workflow.
For example, many Canadian restaurants get reservations through an app called OpenTable. The company uses AI agents to answer FAQs and streamline workflows, and it’s leading the way in demonstrating how agents can improve the ability to offer digital customer service.
Future-Proof Your Digital Customer Service
Digital customer service isn’t the way of the future — it’s how customers expect to receive help and support right now.
As digital device and app use grows, it’s important to be open and available if customers want additional options to connect and solve their own product and service issues.
Automation and AI are your best bets for showing up for customers across digital channels and providing the kind of experience that makes your business one they can’t do without.
