The Value of Customer Service In Today’s Digital Age

As we are moving towards an increasingly virtual world, thanks to the digital age, it is imperative that we have a steady stream of manned support, considering our fallible nature as a human being. This manned support must be a dedicated team that proactively offers a resolution. Customer service is an essential part of our daily lives. A little glitch in the application and we keep smashing the ‘Help’ button. 
In this digital age, it's fairly easy to find an alternate business (read competition) that can provide similar solutions or services by doing a simple search. Not only that there are various comparison websites, social channels from which a customer can find the next best alternative.

According to global statistics, customer acquisition costs almost seven times more than what a business spends on customer support. When the distinction is so vast, the smarter choice is to invest in customer support more. This ensures a steady cash-flow, allows you to gain lifetime advocates for your business. 

Customer retention must be a proactive approach. Once a purchase is done, do not abandon your customers and wait for them to reach out to you. If you know your product well, you know the expected shortcomings. Take the initiative to reach out to your customers- check upon them. However, all this is possible only when you have an absolute data management system in place. Individual data on every customer’s journey with the brand becomes a trump card. Study it, use analytical tools to forecast the future of every customer’s relationship with the brand.

According to Salesforce, 80% of customers often opt for the competitor’s services when they receive poor customer service. In today’s economy, customers expect a fluid service without much hassle, especially for the price they pay. 
So, how do we proceed in order to reduce customer churn?

In the digital age, there is a motto the world swears by, that is “value to velocity”. Whatever be the services you create/deploy, they must, first of all, add a certain value to your customers. These can be done by finding out a customer group’s most purchased items in a basket and giving discounts on the popularly chosen ones. For B2B business, it is critical to find out the real value that the customer is looking for, and are we addressing the ROI. For example, if you are providing accounting software, does the customer value it as a tool for making him efficient or it also helps in reducing the total cost of ownership. What is the USP?

The other is velocity. Speed is of the essence, because we have to assume the customer needs the service/solution to be provided quickly. They desire a prompt and ready response to their queries. Design your apps/websites for easy onboarding and smooth transition from on-boarding to the full-fledged user. 

24/7 live support is a fundamental feature that customers in the modern age desire from the company. Nowadays, with the use of technology like Artificial Intelligence, it’s easy to build a variety of Voicebots and Chatbots that are proficient in solving at least most of the common issues. It can guide the end-user in an interactive way without the necessary involvement of an actual human being for the most common of issues.
Next important feature – database management. Big and successful companies are able to make profits by switching to a more consumer-oriented approach. For that, it is essential that they maintain a comprehensive database in order to capture consumer trends and make pricing and inventory decisions optimally. Again, it operates by providing the “value”, adding value to both business and consumer.

Another important point is having a consumer-oriented approach in application design. Following the consumer preference model, businesses increasingly focus on prioritizing user accessibility for their application in place of super-complex coded processes. Ensuring that users are familiar with the layout, look-and-feel, and ensuring that the features are easy to use and clearly defined is the fundamental approach of this method.
While organizations are striving to improve customer service, there is a growing shift to proactive customer service. This is also termed as customer success where the team’s end goal is to retain and grow the customer account. So, the customer success team works with the engineering team and support team in tandem to take the customer service to new heights.

Conclusion

We can safely conclude that customers expect trust, transparency, and comfort. If the above-mentioned efforts are being made, your churn rate will reduce. Your customers will become your lifetime source of income. They will even promote your brand in their social circles, making way for more customers by default. Longtime customers will also become opportunities for upselling which is again financially beneficial and increasing the overall customer lifetime value (LTV). All of this is possible with a simple step: bringing value to your customer’s lives.