What is Customer Care?
Customer care refers to the way a business treats its customers throughout the duration of the relationship. The desired outcome of customer care is a strong emotional connection that builds customer loyalty and long-term relationships. To do this, businesses need to truly listen to their customers and offer solutions that meet their needs, even though the solutions may not always be in the best interest of the organization.
Customer care is sometimes called customer service, but many CX professionals define them as two different things. Customer service, in its most basic form, can simply be the effective resolution of a customer's issue, without any kind of rapport building. In other words, it can be a coldly professional transaction. Customer service combined with customer care still gets the job done, but leaves customers with the feeling that the company cares about them. It's easy to see why the combination of the two creates better experiences.
Customer care keys to success in the contact center
Contact centers are at the forefront of delivering satisfying customer care. To do this, contact centers need the right elements in place, such as:
- Empathetic agents: It's important that customers and agents build a positive connection. To help agents with rapport building, they should receive training on active listening skills and communicating empathy.
- Customer-centric policies: Running up against rigid policies when they're trying to get help can leave customers frustrated and feeling like the company doesn't care about them. Organizations should develop policies that balance business needs with customer needs.
- Smart technology: Artificial intelligence has made it easier to determine customer sentiment and preferences, which enables contact centers to better personalize experiences. For example, predictive behavioral routing can match callers to agents they are likely to "click" with. And CX analytics can provide insights into how customers feel about the brand and the service they are receiving.
- Personalization: Providing personalized experiences is an essential element of customer care. This involves understanding individual customer preferences, history, and needs to tailor interactions, recommendations, and support accordingly. Personalization helps create a sense of importance, value, and engagement for the customer.
- Proactive support: Customer care goes beyond reactive responses to customer inquiries. It includes proactive measures to anticipate and address customer needs and concerns before they arise. This can be achieved through proactive outreach, product updates, educational resources, or timely notifications.
- Problem resolution: Customer care focuses on addressing and resolving customer issues or problems efficiently and effectively. This involves understanding customer complaints, troubleshooting technical difficulties, providing solutions, and ensuring customer satisfaction with the resolution process.
A well-executed customer care strategy should result in stronger customer relationships that benefit the bottom line.