Customer Continuity

Creating connected experiences that maximise engagement, continuity, and service quality across multiple channels

Customer Continuity

Creating connected experiences that maximise engagement, continuity, and service quality across multiple channels

It is well-established that exceptional customer service and memorable experiences are the key factors that help organisations stand out from the competition. But with the way we communicate and collaborate having fundamentally changed throughout 2020, customer continuity has become a key part of maintaining Quality of Service (QoS).

During the rise of COVID-19, we saw major dips in consumer confidence throughout the UK - a trend that is thankfully reversing. However, organisations should not become complacent, and must put robust measures in place to centre the customer experience and provide assurance that QoS will be maintained.

The four factors that make or break each customer interaction There are a few key elements to any successful customer interaction. While these are ostensibly simple and should form the foundation of any customer care process, social distancing requirements have made them considerably more complicated, although not insurmountable.

01. Being able to use their preferred channel to make contact. As we know, customer contact has fundamentally changed over recent years. To start with, 54% of organisations surveyed reported an increase in email contact, 52% in social media, and 65% in the use of web chat , showing that the days of phone calls being the default mode of communication are clearly in the past. Furthermore, with increasingly higher volumes of sensitive customer data now transferred on a daily basis, organisations must ensure they have the infrastructure to optimise performance and security across all available channels, in order to maintain a consistently high-quality customer experience across each of them.

02. No trouble reaching the right member of staff. Regardless of their preferred channel for getting in touch, it is essential that customers receive a response at the earliest opportunity. Even at the first point of contact, if an immediate response is not possible, an automated communication should be in place to acknowledge the query and offer an estimated timeframe. This is where the inherent flexibility of SaaS applications excels, ensuring staff remain readily contactable by customers.

03. Only having to explain a problem once. 53% of customers describe having to explain a problem multiple times to different team members as a key source of frustration that is certain to sour their perception of the overall experience. There should be measures in place to capture all relevant details at the first point of contact, after which they should be accessible to all members of staff. Furthermore, contacting a colleague for their input, or escalating a query to a different team, must not delay the resolution any more than is necessary. For the most part, it is no longer possible to consult a colleague at their desk, which means alternative channels - such as unified communications platforms like Teams and Zoom - must be in place to ensure the appropriate SME is always just a click away.

04. A swift, stress-free resolution. Staff should have everything they need to ensure a swift resolution readily available, including immediate access to internal specialists and resources, ideally through a single, centralised platform, whether they are based in the office or connecting remotely. This will help to maximise the number of first-contact resolutions and - in turn - build customer confidence.