If you’re a business owner, you’ve probably experienced the exponential growth in the number of interactions you’re having with your customers — across all channels, from email to social media.
While it means you have more opportunities to personalize your communications and delight your customers, it also means your customer service reps might be completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of interactions they have to deal with. And it’s only getting worse. That volume will continue to increase now that remote work and digital interactions have become the norm.
That’s where automation and self-service solutions can help. Simple requests can be handled by customers directly, while more complex queries are funneled to qualified reps. This can help you manage support costs without hiring additional staff, and lets you improve the overall customer experience. At the same time, automating back-end processes — via a case management and ticketing system — helps your agents become more productive and increase your ROI.
4 key benefits to your business
A customer can interact with your business in several ways: via email, phone calls, messages on social media, contact forms and reviews on dedicated websites. These interactions should be considered an opportunity to gather feedback and improve the overall customer experience. Indeed, every interaction with a customer is a chance to connect, and to increase retention and advocacy.
When managed properly, customer interactions can benefit your business in several ways:
1. Boost brand loyalty
Customers are more likely to stay loyal to brands that provide personalized customer experiences. Ensuring that interactions with your brand are personalized (and positive) can help set you apart from your competitors.
2. Reduce bad reviews
A negative experience travels fast, since dissatisfied customers are often eager to share their experience — either by word of mouth or on social media. Prioritizing customer interactions can lead to more satisfied customers and, in turn, fewer negative reviews.
3. Increase referrals
On the opposite end of the spectrum, positive interactions can help to boost customer referrals. And referrals — whether to friends or family, or via reviews or social media — can be much more powerful than an advertising campaign.
4. Retain customers
If a customer approaches you with a complaint, how you handle that interaction can determine whether or not you lose that customer. Attracting new customers is typically more costly than retaining existing ones, so it’s in your best interest to nurture those relationships.
How Inbenta can help
Inbenta’s AI-powered customer experience tools let you communicate, manage and track customer engagements across multiple channels. They can also reduce friction in the customer experience thanks to automation and self-service tools, from natural language chatbots and semantic search to step-by-step digital demos.
AI automation also frees up your call center employees from routine support requests so they can focus on more value-added tasks. This improves resolution times (since self-service tools are available 24×7) and makes it easier to resolve issues, which is a critical driver of good customer experience. And that’s a win for both you and your customers alike.
