Customer service is one of the most crucial aspects of running a business. Your customer service team should be prepared to understand and address all the issues that your customers might be having. If they are slow or ineffective, the team can inadvertently end up making the situation worse. This will not only frustrate your customer but also increase the time needed to resolve the query. In case your business provides multiple support channels, providing competent customer service will become even more challenging. Your team will be grappling with multiple channel functionality and interfaces. But, with an integrated customer support service, you will be able to sidestep such issues and provide an exceptional service experience to your customers.
Before we dive into the benefits of integrated customer support service, let’s first understand exactly what it is.
What is integrated customer service?
In simple terms, integrated customer service combines technology and human touch in order to provide an effective customer service experience. Regardless of which of your team members is attending to their matter, your customers should receive stellar service. The team collaboration between different service representatives should be frictionless. In the case of different support channels that offer different engagement features, customers might get in touch with multiple channels regarding a single issue. It’s your responsibility to ensure that regardless of how the customer has reached out, you deliver effective service.
How can integrated customer support service benefit you?
With an integrated approach, you will be able to elevate your customer service experience. Check out the three main benefits:
A seamless customer service experience
Having integrated customer support will allow you to provide seamless customer service to your customers. It’s important to note that some queries are straightforward and can be easily resolved using automation. You can set up a scripted chatbot to deliver automated responses. However, there are some queries that are complex and require human support. In such cases, you have to handle these queries with a representative.
Every conversation needs to be tracked and documented appropriately. The entire customer service team should have access to these messages. This is especially beneficial when the representative currently conversing with the customer isn’t the one who engaged with them at first. Even if they are, there might be some time since the last interaction, and the documented conversation will help them help the customers better.
Reduced response time
When your customers need help, they don’t want to keep waiting. The faster you handle their queries, the more satisfied they will be. By adopting an integrated approach, you can set up a customer service solution that pulls the data of the customer from the following sources:
- Customer Data Platform (CDP)
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system
- Other backend integrations
This way, the moment your customers reach out, your customer service team will be able to see their data right next to their conversation. It will save your team a lot of time, which will otherwise be spent scouring through all the channels to get a full picture of the customer’s profile. The integrated approach allows them to offer quicker responses.
Effective engagement through customer’s preferred channels
Even though email and phone are the most common ways for customers to contact the businesses, there are several others that you should focus on as well. This includes Instagram Messaging, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp Business, Google’s Business Messages, and others. In fact, if you don’t provide support through these asynchronous chat channels, it is highly likely that you are lagging behind your competition.
When done the right way, an integrated customer support service can elevate your customer experience to the next level, making it faster, hassle-free, and seamless.
