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4 Tips For Better Omni-Channel Customer Service

Customer service is an important aspect of any business. It’s one of the primary factors customers consider when deciding where to do business.

In fact, 90 percent of Americans say they factor in customer service when determining where to shop. In addition, 89 percent say they are more likely to make another purchase after a good customer experience. So, it’s essential that your business provides the best customer service experience possible.

One way to do this is through omni-channel customer service. Omni-channel customer service is an approach where you provide a seamless customer service experience across multiple channels. This allows customers to contact you in their preferred way and get a high-quality experience. Below are 4 tips you can use to provide a better omni-channel customer service experience in your business.

 

Integrate With Social Media

The first thing you’ll want to explore is integrating your customer service with your social media. Social media platforms are one of the more popular places that customers turn to when they want to contact a brand.

For example, they may send a direct message on Twitter or leave a comment on a Facebook page. If you don’t have a system in place for managing and responding to these comments, customers may grow frustrated in their inability to reach you.

A great place to start for many businesses is integrating with an existing messaging system. For example, you can integrate with the Instagram DM API to have access to all the direct messages you receive on Instagram. You can then connect this to your existing customer service tools and manage everything in one place.

This allows your customer service team to quickly respond to customer service requests from Instagram without having to visit the platform, saving them time.

 

Proactively Address Issues

Next, look for opportunities to proactively address customer issues. If you can help a customer fix a problem before they have to contact you, this can go a long way towards improving their opinion of you. This isn’t always easy to do, but when you manage it, it makes a big difference.

For example, you could monitor customer complaints across social media. Sometimes customers complain on social media without directly seeking help from the business. If a customer mentions not enjoying your product, you could reach out to them to see if there’s anything you could do to help.

Another great idea to try relates to failed payment recovery. There are numerous reasons why a customer’s payment may fail, such as an expired credit card. When this happens, the customer may not even realize it happened. Now they’re suddenly without a service they rely on and have to go through the process of figuring out what happened.

If you can proactively reach out to customers with failed payments, you can not only improve your sales numbers but make your customers happier at the same time.

 

Reduce Wait Times

The key to any successful customer service operation is reducing wait times. When customers reach out to your brand with an issue, they want a response as soon as possible. To improve wait times across your different channels, you should look to integrate them as much as possible.

Find a customer service tool that allows you to manage all your different service channels in one location. This will help your service agents address issues faster, as they will never miss an incoming request.

Make sure each of your agents receives training on how to best use this software so that they get the most out of it. Finally, if your wait times are still too long, you may need to consider hiring additional customer service agents.

 

Track Customers Across Channels

The last thing you should look to do is track your customer service interactions. Whenever someone contacts you, get their name and contact information, then store this in a database. Then each time a service agent begins working with someone, they can check the database to see if this person has had an issue before.

Recording information about your customers comes with several benefits. For starters, your service agents can see what previous solutions were tried so that they do not repeat them. They can also follow up with this customer about their previous issues and ensure those problems are still resolved.

Lastly, by tracking customer service issues, you can learn more about what issues your customers are having with your product or services. If the same issues keep coming up, you’ll know you need to address this either by fixing the product or providing customers more information about it.

 

Get Started With Omni-Channel Customer Service

If your business isn’t already using omni-channel customer service, now is the time to get started. It’s one of the best ways to interact with your customers, saving your agents time and providing a better experience to your customers.

Once you find a tool to manage your different customer service channels, begin establishing each of your channels, including email, social media, live chat, and more. Getting them all set up may take some time but the benefits it provides your business will be well worth it in the long run.