Conversational Customer Service: What is It and Why Is It Important
Conversational customer service is being adopted by more and more companies which are aiming to provide the best possible service to their customers. In this article we’d like to go over what conversational customer service is, why is it important, how to implement it and even a few tips on how to improve it.
What is Conversational Customer Service?
Conversational customer service is a strategy that puts the customer at the center of the interaction by switching to a more personalized approach, with the goal of building a long-lasting relationship with them. This ensures that, every time a customer reaches out to support, the agents have all the background information and all the details about past events that they need in order to provide a personalized solution.
Also read: 5 Ways To Deliver Great Customer Service
Why is Conversational Customer Service Important?
When implemented the right way, this strategy truly creates a meaningful relationship between a client and the company. Having background info on the clients and their past experiences with the company informs the decisions of those responsible for helping. It creates a space where every client has their own voice and each of their inquiries receives a personalized response, thus significantly increasing trust.
Also read: How to Measure Customer Service Satisfaction [and Metrics to use]
How to Implement Conversational Customer Support?
We’ve drafted a list of a few things we consider essential in working your way towards true conversational customer support. Let’s take a look!
Implement an Omnichannel Strategy
There are numerous channels where our clients can reach out for help and, sometimes this perk can turn into a burden, if not handled well. An Omnichannel strategy ensures that all of your channels are in one place and that they are also interchangeable, thus making the customer experience a lot smoother.
Understand Your Customer Journey
Understanding the customer journey is often treated as guesswork, but, ideally, it should be a very involved and data-driven process. Allowing your customers to voice their opinion regarding every step of their journey is paramount in building a solid understanding of it.
Be Proactive
Always being on the lookout for things to improve and potential issues to prevent is a strategy that prevents a lot of pain for your customers. When your clients notice this type of extra care and proactiveness in your approach, they tend to really appreciate it.
Implement Chatbots
As we’ve highlighted in a previous blog post, chatbots are becoming more and more popular, as they are the type of investment that end up actually saving company money and time. As this technology evolves, chatbots become more and more versatile and they can do the simpler work, thus saving your agents a lot of time usually spent on repetitive tasks.
Have an Option for Human Interaction
No matter your current strategy and tools you’re using, you should always provide an option for human interaction from the get-go. There are fewer more frustrating situations than being stuck with a bot that doesn’t understand your issue and can’t help you, so let’s prevent that from happening.
Build a Knowledge Center
A knowledge center (or knowledge base) is a database full of useful information that your customers can access at any time, in order to try and answer their own inquiries by themselves. Encouraging them to use these tools before reaching out to support will more than often result in reduced volumes and happier clients.
Set and Track the Right KPIs
KPIs are the foundation of well-informed business decisions and having them at the ready will always make that process more efficient. They also help analysts identify points of growth not only at a company level, but also at an employee level.
Collect and Analyze Data to Improve Your Support
After you’ve defined your strategy and your approach, it’s best to track all of your metrics throughout implementation. This way, you can understand what works well and what doesn’t in real time and make quick changes along the way.
Also read: 9 Benefits of Good Customer Service in 2022
Tips on How to Improve Your Conversational Customer Service
We’ve also gathered a few tips on how to improve your conversational customer service. Most of these are very subtle changes, but they can have a huge impact on the perception of your brand.
Address Customers by Name
Unsurprisingly, most people like being called by their own name rather than the classic “sir” or “madam”. Using the customer’s first name will more often than not make the conversation a lot more friendly and laid back, which is definitely an advantage.
Use Friendly Language
Much like the previous tip, this one is about the feel of the conversation. Using reassuring, yet friendly phrases like “ we will solve this together”, rather than the usual “I will need to check and get back to you”, creates a sense of trust and further establishes the agent’s role as helping hand.
Reduce Response Times
Most people have little patience when it comes to receiving the help they need from support. That is why lower response times tend to have a high impact on the customer’s morale.
Mirror Your Customer’s Tone of Voice
When working with a diverse audience, adaptability is an invaluable skill. Some customers may be the more “straight to the point” type, while others might enjoy a conversation along the way, so it’s always great to identify their tone and match it along your discussion.
Also read: Should A Small Business Invest In Customer Support?
Conclusion
We’ve defined conversational customer service and why it’s important. We’ve gone over how you can implement it and even a few tips on how to make it just a bit better, so now, armed with this information, we encourage you to take action and start making meaningful changes in your approach.
If you’re having trouble with implementing some of the features we mentioned, we’re ready to help you out and we’re just one click away, so feel free to book a free call with us today.