Keeping Up With Customer Satisfaction in the Digital Age

Thanks in part to the widespread accessibility of information, fast access to services, and a highly competitive business environment, customers have become more sophisticated and demanding than ever. In fact, customer satisfaction has been on the decline for a while, partially due to economic uncertainty, but mostly due to businesses not understanding what their customers truly want.

For many businesses, especially small ones, figuring that out is no small task. The truth is, the world of customer service has gotten considerably broader and more complex in recent decades, especially as the Internet has grown increasingly central to how everyone does business.

Digital Customer Service: Now a Necessity

There was a time when digital customer service was an added courtesy, a nod to those who chose the Internet over more traditional means of customer service (like phone support). But that was decades ago. Now, digital support is becoming the default. According to statistics, 87% of professionals said customers used digital channels for customer service during the pandemic — and even after the pandemic subsides, digital channels are near-certain to become the most-used means for customer service interaction.

Digital customer service has become increasingly vital for another reason: the Internet has lowered the bar considerably when it comes to businesses being able to reach customers and market themselves. This means those increasingly sophisticated customers also have increasingly numerous options, and if the customer service at one business doesn't satisfy and delight them, they can fairly easily take their business elsewhere.

In short, a business that doesn't embrace as many digital customer service channels as possible might not be able to remain competitive.

How Businesses are Improving Digital Customer Service

Digital customer service covers a broad spectrum of best practices and commitments. Here are just a few ways businesses are keeping pace with the world of digital customer service:

• Using analytical tools to identify important metrics like churn rate, response time, resolution rate, and so on. Keeping track of these sorts of metrics has been standard operating procedures in all sorts of businesses for decades, but thanks in part to big data, the amount of information that can be collected, organized, and analyzed is exponentially greater than ever before -- and the insights that can be gained from that data more sophisticated than ever.

• Employing CRM customer relations software) such as Zendesk to better track and cultivate customer relations. As has been touched on before, customers are more sophisticated than ever -- and that means emails, spreadsheets, and human memory are simply not enough to retain all the vital details of one's customer base. This becomes especially true as a customer base grows, which is why it's so important to have a straightforward, comprehensive software solution for tracking customer relations.

• Businesses are also embracing omnichannel support across a variety of platforms. It used to be that customer service involved either going to a local brick-and-mortar store, mailing in a physical letter, or calling a telephone number. Then came websites and contact forms and email addresses. Now, businesses offer a wide variety of options: live chat and AI chatbots, knowledge bases, social media, apps, and more. Customers' options are only likely to grow broader, and small and large businesses alike must continue to evolve to keep up.

• Related to the above point, savvy business owners are using resources like AI chatbots and knowledge bases to step up "self-service" options, for an increasingly large demographic of customers who do not want to deal with human customer service at all -- they'd rather look up a solution themselves or talk to a machine and avoid person-to-person contact altogether if they can.

• Providing better and more sophisticated training for employees, who must be educated on how best to use resources like CRM software, knowledge bases, analytics, and other vital tools, as well as how to deal with customers efficiently and courteously in the age of digital customer service.

It also behooves business owners to avoid some of the most frequent pitfalls of upgrading their customer service. One common error business owners make is choosing to embrace automation before fully understanding what the customer expects from them. This can result in a frustrating experience for the customer and a business that's implemented a costly but deeply flawed automated solution that must now be overhauled.

Another all-too-common mistake for business owners to make is to ignore customers — either deliberately or by accident. With so many channels available for customers to reach out, it might be easy for business owners to let an email, contact form submission, or social media message just slip through the cracks. That customer may very well be lost and never return — which makes it vitally important that customer service employees are well-trained and well-educated.

While digital customer service might be challenging to come up with, it’s not an aspect of doing business that can be ignored. Support through digital channels is already most5 of the way toward being the new normal, and skilled service professionals and the right software will only become more important.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the management of EconoTimes