With shops shuttered, call centre staff working remotely and employees furloughed, businesses have had to rethink how to create a positive customer experience and what this looks like in the COVID-19 era, and beyond, writes Philipp Heltewig, CEO and Co-founder at Cognigy.
Research from McKinsey shows that during times of crisis, a customer’s interaction with a company can trigger an immediate and lingering effect on his or her sense of trust and loyalty. COVID has triggered changes in customer behaviours and expectations with businesses adapting their processes to respond to this and provide an enhanced service. Research from PwC shows that the key to providing an improved customer experience is understanding what the customer need is, and then working out how to reduce the barriers.
Cognigy recently conducted research to understand what customers find most frustrating about calling a company. The results showed that, with so many communication channels open to consumers and businesses, human touch is still an essential part of the omnichannel experience. For many, making a phone call is still the preferred option but what are Australian businesses doing wrong to upset and drive away customers, and how can they fix it?
Customer pet peeves and what you can do about them
Machine answering
When a customer opts to make a phone call, one of the main reasons is that they are looking for a fast resolution and might want to directly speak to a human. This means that being answered by a machine can be counterproductive, so it is important for businesses to ask whether this is used to make the customer’s life easier, or to streamline internal processes.
Leveraging technology, such as artificial intelligence, can help businesses use machine answering to their advantage. As consumers increasingly expect personalised and intelligent interactions, AI can help to answer standard requests automatically. This will free up the queue to quickly redirect non-standard requests to a human agent, within the most appropriate department, therefore improving the experience and reducing overall waiting times.
Customers hate long hold times
Long hold times, and bad on hold music, are synonymous with contacting a business and do not make for a positive first impression or experience. It is reported that some Australian customers have spent as long as five hours on hold before getting through to an agent as the pandemic significantly increased call waiting times.
To combat this, companies need to address the root cause. This is often due to not having enough agents to cope with demand, particularly during seasons of fluctuating demand, or a particular skill or process that is increasing demand. It can also be caused by a lack of training or an issue around not having the correct information at hand to provide answers.
Often the answer is something that can easily be addressed by businesses to help make agents more productive.
Being passed around to different departments irks customers
Cognigy’s research showed that the clear front runner for a customers’ pain point, with 49 per cent, was being passed around departments and between agents. Often, this issue is further compounded by the original agent not passing on the correct details meaning that the customer is required to repeat themselves and explain their issue or request time and time again.
This is a common complaint, indicative of siloed departments and a lack of communication, and needs to be addressed by a change in mindset, led from the top-down. When calling a company, a consumer is not interested in which department the agent is in, they just want their problem to be solved. Businesses need to make the customer experience everybody’s problem. According to research, agents lacking knowledge is surprisingly low on the frustration scale, meaning that the under-used phrase ‘I don’t know the answer, but I will find out for you’ can go a long way in improving the customer service experience.
Agents lacking knowledge
Although a lower priority for customers, it is crucial that businesses improve agent’s knowledge to enable a better customer experience. Throughout the pandemic, Australian employees’ demand for professional development has increased. Ongoing training and progression of an agent’s knowledge and skills helps to provide a better customer experience but also engages employees and improves morale.
Making information more readily available by improving internal knowledge bases and minimising data silos, combined with AI-driven agent assist functionalities, are excellent ways to complement ongoing training and increase agent knowledge. This includes equipping agents with agent assist technologies, that suggest customer answers and next best actions. One of the most important steps is improving the customer experience by implementing supportive AI technology in the contact centre.
As with most practices, the key is to improve these processes continuously. This also involves leveraging new tools and technologies to enhance existing systems and skillsets fueled by machine learning and AI.
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