Keeping customers satisfied is a top priority for any organisation because it can make or break a business. Recent research tells you all you need to know: 71% of customers will leave if they lose trust in a company. One of the causes of lost trust? Poor customer experience (even if it happens the one time).
Businesses must step up to the plate or risk losing out to their competitors.
With this in mind, here are five ways to streamline and strengthen your customer experience with the right cloud communications platform based on this eBook.
1. Harness the power of your customer data
Dealing with data may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but tapping into it can be a game changer. Drawing helpful insights on call volume data, average hold times and how your customers make contact means better resource planning. Creating shift schedules that work better for all parties helps deliver a better CX and boosts productivity.
RingCentral customer, Costa Express, tapped into advanced reporting and analytics to significantly improve their team efficiencies. This created a better all-around experience and reduced wait times.
2. Centralise and unify your communications
Building a unified, centralised cloud system can significantly improve your customer experience. For businesses with multiple locations, having a system that combines all customer communications can be a make-or-break scenario. What’s more, it can make life a whole lot easier for your agents. That’s because bringing together customer communications data across phone, email, web chat, and other channels will free up time spent switching between different platforms.
The leading restaurant chain, Côte Brasserie, discovered this when trying to fine-tune their booking processes for their customers.
3. Embrace the potential for personalisation
According to McKinsey, customers demand personalisation more than ever, and when companies do it right it pays off. Organisations that do personalisation well actually generate 40% more revenue from those activities than others. Therefore, personalising interactions with each customer makes a huge difference in terms of CX and your bottom line.
It’s important to train agents to understand customers better. Not every caller will have had the same experience, nor will they have the same issues or questions. Features such as call whisper, which gives insightful customer information to the agent before they even pick up the call, mean you can help your agents get to know your customers and customise every interaction specifically for each caller.
4. Consider your omnichannel options
For many customers, being on hold for a long time is one of the most frustrating aspects of their customer experience. In many cases, this can cause that customer to hang up altogether. One of the easiest ways to manage call volumes and ensure that customers reach a live agent as quickly as possible is to implement omnichannel tools. Offering several effective ways for customers to get answers can help cut down call queues. This method also reduces the pressure on your agents, streamlines your call processes and improves the experience for customers by allowing them to choose how they want to contact you.
Côte Brasserie fully embraced omnichannel tools, which made a huge difference for their agents and staff in their restaurants.
5. Make things simple for your customers
Businesses are increasingly losing customers on account of bad customer service. That means the onus is on contact centres to make their part of the customer journey as seamless as possible. Whether it’s offering an automatic call back, instant customer support with web chat or first call resolution, contact centres must put improved practices in place.
Kent’s regional theatre, The Marlowe, personalised and simplified customer communications by moving to a cloud solution (aka RingCentral). This meant their customers, donors, members and other stakeholders no longer had to grapple with an archaic system. They said goodbye to a system with limited functionality, and customers were instead greeted with personalised hold messages. The team also integrated email with preloaded responses into agents’ workflows; this made life simpler for staff and reduced wait times.
RingCentral’s cloud-based solutions are built with the customer experience front of mind, helping you deliver exceptional customer experiences. For more inspiration, take a look at our helpful eBook to see how even more RingCentral customers are doing just this.
Originally published Jul 27, 2022, updated Aug 25, 2022
