Make it Easy – Give Customers the Support Experience They Expect and Value

In the first post of this three part series, Effective Customer Service Can be the Key to Small Business Growth, we talked about how small businesses need to protect their existing customer base if they want to achieve meaningful, sustainable growth. Providing effective customer service, in which issues are solved competently during the first contact, is a good step in this direction.

But to really deliver on customer expectations, getting help also needs to be easy and make customers feel good about their experience. This post will focus on what "easy" customer service looks like and a future post will discuss the emotional aspects of the customer experience. Delivering the "three E's" of customer service - effectiveness, ease of use, and emotional connections - is a proven recipe for increasing customer loyalty and retention.

What is "easy" customer service?

Have you ever been trapped in an endless IVR menu with no obvious way to reach a live agent? Have you been passed around to multiple agents because nobody knew how to solve your problem? Here's one most of us are familiar with - have you ever waited ten, fifteen, thirty minutes to talk to a support agent? These experiences are all the opposite of easy.

Easy customer service is characterized by speed, convenience, and choice. Modern technology has made it possible to provide all three and that same modern technology has also conditioned consumers to expect this from businesses. Gone are the days when people will readily tolerate long wait times and phone-only service. Advances in mobile technology, cloud computing, digital communications, artificial intelligence, connection speeds, virtual assistants, and more have created a culture that is used to choosing from a multitude of communication methods based on what people need to accomplish - for example, texting for short messages that need a quick response and emailing for longer, less urgent  messages.

Examples of easy customer service 

Here are some examples of how businesses can deliver on expectations of speed, convenience, and choice.

• A pizza restaurant has a chatbot on Facebook Messenger that allows people to place orders and track the status of deliveries. The chatbot also cross-sells items like soda and bread sticks, resulting in higher average revenue per order.
• Although the contact center closes at 9 pm, customers of this bank can interact with the interactive voice response (IVR) system after hours to check their account balance and find out the status of their mortgage application.
• Michael is filling out an online insurance application when he runs into a snag. He clicks the onscreen chat button and is connected to a helpful agent who is able to co-browse Michael's application and talk him through how to correct and finish it.
• Assembling the backyard playground equipment is harder than John anticipated. Fortunately, the manufacturer offers video chat support so the agent can view all those leftover parts and advise and watch while John puts them in place.

Different situations call for different interaction channels. Customers value being able to choose the method that provides them with quick and convenient help.

4 signs your customers are having a hard time reaching you 

Luckily, easy customer service isn't one of those "you'll know it when you see it" kind of things. There are some very objective KPIs that serve as barometers to let businesses know if their customer service operation is making it hard or easy for customers to receive assistance. If any of the following are true, it's time to figure out how to introduce more ease of use in the service model.

It's frustrating for consumers to try self-service, only to discover the mobile app is glitchy or the IVR authentication process is overly complicated. What should have been a single, successful attempt has now turned into two with the bad aftertaste of the failed self-service tainting the experience.

5 common problems that prevent ease of use  

When the previously mentioned metrics fall short of target and ease of use is lacking, contact center leaders should begin their troubleshooting efforts by assessing their software tools, channel offerings, and agent staffing levels. Here are some specific problems that are commonly behind ease of use issues:

In such a data-driven environment, not being able to retrieve key operational data is a significant barrier to managing and improving performance. Customer experience can suffer when data is locked up and inaccessible.

Outdated software - the root of ease of use issues?  

The problems we just discussed are frequently caused and magnified by outdated, legacy systems. Older software tools can have the following limitations:

• Limited features - outdated software doesn't have many of latest features. We've already discussed limited IVR self-service capabilities. Other examples are archaic agent desktops, workforce management systems that can’t reforecast on the fly, and lack of omnichannel routing capabilities.
• Hard to configure - legacy ACDs and IVRs often require vendor involvement or programming skills to make configuration changes. This means longer lead times that hamper quick reactions to changing business conditions.
• Difficult to integrate - to get the most from contact center software, the different modules must be integrated with each other and other business systems such as CRM applications. Outdated applications that don't use APIs don't always "play nicely" with other software.
• Outdated technology - modern contact center software leverages technology like cloud computing and artificial intelligence, giving it a distinct advantage over legacy systems.
• Inflexible reporting - as previously discussed, outdated software doesn't always provide reporting flexibility, making it difficult for contact center leaders to optimize performance.

Recommendations  

The last ten years have produced exponential advancements in contact center technology and capabilities. When paired with consumers' emerging preferences for digital customer service, the writing is on the wall - contact centers need to modernize. Here are five ways to do that.

Final thoughts

There's a genuine business imperative for providing customer service that offers speed, convenience, and choice. When customers need help, they want ease, not hassle. Customers will reward businesses that provide ease and walk away from businesses that don't. If small businesses want to grow and thrive, especially in today's economy, they need to satisfy their customers with convenient service. Implementing industry leading contact center software is the right solution for making meaningful improvements to customer experience.

Let NICE inject ease of use into your customer service delivery

NICE CXone is the leading cloud customer interaction platform—100% focused on helping contact centers achieve their customer experience goals. CXone makes it easy for customers to get the personalized help they need by engaging via convenient digital, mobile, and social channels and quickly connecting with the most skilled agent (who can resolve their issue on the first attempt).

See what some of our clients have to say about CXone ACD/IVR. Then watch our demo video to see how CXone IVR integrates with chatbots for improved self-service. Finally, check out our software package options, specifically designed for small business needs.

And watch for the next post in this series in which we’ll be discussing the importance of making customers feel good about their service interactions.