The word communication brings my thoughts back to a phone that is powered by a hand-propelled generator. Woodford explains:
When you "call" a friend on a baked-bean can telephone, you speak into the can at one end and the sound of your voice makes the can vibrate. The string then carries the vibrations to the can your friend is holding, which vibrates too, and produces sounds your friend can hear. Unlike a baked-bean can telephone, you can't speak into a telegraph. Instead, you send messages as coded pulses of electricity by flicking a switch on and off. Suppose you could combine these two ideas: what if you could turn the sound of your voice into an electrical signal that could be carried down a wire of any length, then turned back into a sound that someone else could hear at the other end? That was the idea that occurred to Alexander Graham Bell—and it's the principle behind a telephone.1
At first, these lines were largely public, and a communicator had to pick up the phone and see if it was free to be able to make their own desired call. Soon after, the Hello Girls came into play—female human operators that would literally plug and unplug lines to make them more secure and less public (for the most part).2 These girls report their job as filled with interactions of all sorts: happy people, scared people, angry people, rushing people, just a lot of people.3 Someone had to communicate with people just to communicate with the person that they were trying to communicate with. This was all terminated by a funeral company that had a hunch that one of the operators was intentionally directing service to a different funeral home.4
Communication has changed a lot these day in the way that we are able to reach out to those we love or work with. This revolution in communication has-in turn-spilled over to the customer service realm. We have new ways to show others our commitment to the quality of products that we provide and the happiness of our buyer’s experience. Why do you care? Because according to Kulbyte, “86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience…The more expensive the item, the more they are willing to pay, according to a research from PWC.”5 That’s right buddy, more money for you the seller; clarity and frustration-less experience for you the buyer. A win-win. This is three explorations of customer service exposed for what it is and uncensored for what it should be. Let’s explore three advantages customer service providers have in the days of tech, keeping in mind along the way that some things will just never change.
Exposé #1: Trigger Happy
Customers like a quick response time—plain and simple. That fact has been around for a long time and just isn’t going anywhere. What has changed is the type of response time that we are talking about. In this faster-paced society, the response time needs to be lightning fast. It is often said that if you don’t land the deal…someone else will. For most situations, when a customer is in the market, they are in the market. The toss up is that being in the limbo process for very long is uncomfortable. Customers would usually like to go ahead with something (buy) and get out.
This truth mixed with the microwave-fast society we find ourselves demands business availability every one to few hours. I can’t tell you how many times, I have gotten business simply due to the fact that I gave timely follow-up to their inquiries of requesting more information. If I couldn’t get back to them right away, then I would give them a reasonable time frame (within that day) that I could. And I can’t tell you how many times that my husband or myself have left a seller and sought after someone else because of horrible response time.
Computer software has been used to test customer service response times. Here is what was found:
“Simpr [a software program] mystery shopped over 650 ecommerce brands during ‘Cyber 5,’ the period of time between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The results revealed surprising lapses in response times, ones that cost businesses millions in potential missed revenue...Here’s what we found when it came to email response time: Only 13% of pre-sale emails were answered under one hour...27% of customer service email took longer than 24 hours.”6
Once the response time exceeded 24 hours, on average brands were missing out on 2 million a day.6 Luce continues by outlining 6 steps to improving customer service time:
1. Use Human Cloud technology to scale customer support. 2. Implement customer service software to make your inbox more manageable. 3. Use email autoresponders to keep your customers in the loop and manage expectations. 4. Use time-based alerts to make sure no emails go missing or are delayed. 5. Use templates and text shortcuts to reduce the time it takes to write each email. 6. Categorize all incoming customer service emails and respond based on priority.6
One of the customer service software possibilities is Flowrite, a program that auto writes email responses for ease of brain and faster reply. With the new technology age that we are upon, we can now collaborate with other humans, software, settings, and features to make sure that each customer feels like they are being heard and deemed as important.
Exposé #2: Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Another fact that just isn’t going to change is the consistent care that customers appreciate. On the flip side of swiftness, is the idea of not losing organization and
personability for the sake of advancement. Just like the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, what most humans and customers really want is consistency.
“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative,” quoted by Oscar Wilde.7 For most people running their own businesses or that of someone else’s, imagination isn’t hard to come by. This is the guts of what it is to be an entrepreneur—productive, resourceful, and visionary. And most that possess these characteristics think that there is no better way to be—highly priding themselves for their go-getting spirit. However, without the ability to step back from a bird’s eye view and see projects through, what has been started can easily be lost.
From start to finish, the customer likes to know that others know who they are, what their need/problem is, and any recent activity that has taken place in such regard. I remember a dissatisfied customer of a business selling freeze-dryers. The customer commented on how they called and emailed the freeze-dryer company with their problem, which was met with slow response time as discussed earlier. Of particular interest here, however, is how the phone and email responses didn’t seem to understand who he was, what his problem was, and his point of resolution.
Squillace reveals 10 steps in facilitating consistent email communication with customers based off of secrets from professionals receiving hundreds of emails a day:
1. Only Keep Emails Requiring Immediate Action in Your Inbox. 2. Create a “Waiting Folder” for Action-Pending Emails. 3. Make Subfolders or Labels Your New BFF. 4. Set Inbox Rules or Filters. 5. Use Your Calendar to Track Emails That Require Follow-up 6. Don’t Let Junk Mail Languish in Your Inbox. 7. Create Templates for Your Go-To Responses. 8. Set Aside Time Blocks for Checking Email—and Stick to Them. 9. Turn Off Email Notifications. 10. Squeeze in Mindless Email Tasks During Downtime8
These are great tips deserving of some time of implementing. Many times messages in a small business go straight into an inbox where there is very little linking by person or
project—especially when emails are sent from different people from the same company/project. Using some of the tools that have been given to us in the e-world will help in the first stages of organizing for consistency throughout the customer experience and satisfaction.
I have heard it also said that one can either do a lot of things or they can do a little things well. Setting up communication to give each person that personalized experience is just as important in this day and age than ever before. And, thankfully, it is easier than ever before with the help of our built-in features of computer assistance to do a lot of things well.
Exposé #3: See It Through
A great place to start here is at the very beginning, and a great place to finish is at the very end. Reilly outlines four buying signals that will let you know when a customer is ready to buy: nodding their head, repeating a benefit statement, asking for price, and saying yes.9 So many times businesses want to land the deal before the customer is actually ready buy, which leaves the feeling of a rushed encounter. But when they are ready to execute a sale, where does customer service go from there. One thing that will to some degree probably never change is what most people know as 'buyer’s remorse.'
But this doesn’t have to be such a common occurence. Knowing the stages of buying and seeing a customer all the way through can help remedy some of this foreboding. Millwood talks about the five stages of the consumer decision making process:
1. Need recognition (awareness): The first and most important stage of the buying process, because every sale begins when a customer becomes aware that they have a need for a product or service. 2. Search for information (research): During this stage, customers want to find out their options. 3. Evaluation of alternatives (consideration): This is the stage when a customer is comparing options to make the best choice. 4. Purchasing decision (conversion): During this stage, buying behavior turns into action – it’s time for the consumer to buy! 5. Post-purchase evaluation (re-purchase): After making a purchase, consumers consider whether it was worth it, whether they will recommend the product/service/brand to others, whether they would buy again, and what feedback they would give.10
So many times, companies have amazing customer service all the way up to post-purchase. A big part of brand image is linked to their customer service. And this image needs to be the same all the way through the 5 stages, whether by first information-learning interactions to our handling after-sales processes. Furthermore, this needs to be done through all points of contact whether on the phone, email, text, chat, social media, even videochat/skype, or otherwise.
One of the main ways that customers on most platforms are directed to contact the business/sellers after the product arrives (and otherwise) is through email. Just as emails need to be utilized for consistency, they should also be utilized as great tools to bridge the gap in any disconnect that may have happened through mismatch of customer expectations. In the event of customers needing more care after securing the product/service, Healy talks about 10 tips of writing great response emails:
1. Give It a Human Touch. 2. Show Empathy. 3. Value Their Time. 4. Remain Positive. 5. Be Consistent. 6. Keep the Language Clear and Simple 7. Share Resources to Help Even Further 8. Use customer service email phrases 9. Show gratitude 10. End your email with gusto.”11
Her pointers are worth a deeper look. Sometimes we are too filled with jargon or professional for the sake of professionalism. This can confuse maters and cause a disconnect in the steady stream of the commerce relationship. Statements like, "Is there anything else I can help you with today?" goes a long way in making sure the customer is satisfied to the utmost. Adding a question to close the email facilities concern and a possible unresolved areas. Personal touches also go a long way in seeing the merchant process all the way through. All of this makes me think about the times serving tables in a restaurant that we had to do “check backs” to see how the food tasted. Whether done through email as discussed here or other electronic methods, check backs are an absolute must in any business' rhythm.
And when you receive responses, listen. One example of this was one of our
customers receiving an open poly bag and requesting that we put our products in a box. This same feedback was given to a fellow business that uses thin boxes—requesting thicker boxes. We have definitely modified our shipments to include more boxes when possible. The key to feedback is to listen.
In these days of tech, there are applications like Survey Sparrow that can generate surveys, helping businesses listen and respond to participant’s observations and undergoings. These feature-specific surveys could be followed up with more inquiries seeking deeper clarification as well as recommendations for use of products or even different products that might make a better match. Post-purchase surveys can be followed up with short blurps, remembering that customers already spent a portion of their time and money purchasing with you.12 Keep your response with no images—remember you are not trying to sell.12 You want a simple response, provide a simple request. The idea here is that not everyone loves your business as much as you do. Do ask for thoughts about the competition to help your niche, but do so in a way that maintains the bearer of the information as valuable.12
Graduation Day
Because in the end...the exposed and censored truth…the moment you have been waiting for…. Customer service, whether a hundred years ago or today, is defined as a real human showing value for others as a real human. This needs to happen from the first, fast response times to consistency all the way through the buying stages. The final theme here is that your customers would feel so valued that they would want to not only turn-about as a repeat customer, but that they would want to give more feedback so that you can tweak your business to provide even more excellent customer service to them in the future. This all-in turn-creates a positive, upward cycle for both the customer and the business. The tech side of making sure this happens can be quite helpful and get about as complicated as it needs to be or as you want to make it. Tech can obviously be far more complicated and useful than discussed here. But this one real and life-like truth remains as long as humans exist. This is the 'soft, warm truth.' Humans—even through tech mediums—want to be known (exposed) and heard (uncensored). Do this, and you will pass Communication 101 in a tech-savvy world and bring a much needed human feature to the cold, industrial, tech world--growth.
Footnotes
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