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Channels

‘Tipping point’ between traditional and digital service identified by Verint…

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The results of a large-scale study of more than 24,000 consumers in 12 countries commissioned by Verint Systems Inc. has identified a ‘tipping point’ between digital and traditional customer service; indicating that, despite the rise in digital customer service channels and options, 79 per cent of consumers prefer ‘human touch’ to remain a part of customer service when engaging with brands and service providers.

The Digital Tipping Point: How Do Organizations Balance the Demands for Digital and Human Customer Service?’ report revealed that the complexity of the service requests are ‘heavily influencing’ whether a customer will choose digital or more traditional channels, such as phone or in-store, to resolve their request.

Many consumers around the world are choosing the phone (24 per cent) or going in-store (23 per cent) as their primary way of interacting with service providers and brands. Regarding the choice of preferred digital customer service channels, 22 per cent of consumers want access to an online account, 14 per cent want the ability to communicate with a customer service agent via email, and 9 per cent cited that they prefer to connect using mobile apps.

Download the full report here

Industry Spotlight: “It’s up to you how to handle social channels, but choose wisely”…

800 450 Jack Wynn

The term ‘call centre’ usually conjures up images of vast open office spaces, occupied by dozens of telesales representatives parked in front of computer screens with their omnipresent headsets.

Gone are the days where the primary source of communication is by telephone. In the digital age, many consumers decide to take to their desktop when they want to make a purchase or, more importantly, air a grievance.

In an ideal world, a customer that has a concern will reach out to your call centre via telephone. Customer care specialists can pull up details quickly, and can use the pauses to engage with the person on the other end of the phone. With this said, the concept of Live Chat allows the opportunity to address a complaint while the customer is online and available to participate in the process as well.

The internet is rife with opportunities to either sing the praises or throw some acid on a business. Social media pages, Yelp, Trip Advisor, Feefo, Google and Trustpilot are just some of the channels that allow the consumer to rate and leave feedback on virtually any business on the planet. Therefore, today’s customer support professionals need to be adept at handling complaints through various outlets.

There is a growing number of people who take to social media to vent about their experience with a brand. And everyone loves to read a good rant, right? What can end up happening is people start piggy-backing on the original comment, and before you know it there is a viral complaint about your company flying all over the internet. Left unattended, these can fester and do ongoing damage to your business.

So what’s a brand to do? Here are a few simple tips:

1)    Monitor your social media pages: Make sure you check for direct messages. The sooner you acknowledge someone’s issue, the easier it will be to make them a fan of your business again.

2)    Search for your brand: People may not bother searching for your official Facebook page or Twitter handle, and the only way you’ll find those harsh comments is searching for your brand name. Include searches for common misspellings. Then try to engage with those individuals, but get them off public pages and on to email or telephone.

3)    Check your ratings: Usually, a one-star rating on sites like Trustpilot can be remedied by apologising for the experience the customer had, and asking them to get in touch to try to find a satisfactory resolution to the issue. That is the result what people want.

4)    Keep your cool: The internet explodes with a story gone viral every few months. A customer who complained on social media received a defensive (and usually offensive) reply from the business. As much it might pain you, the customer is always right; bite your tongue and try to address the issue in a timely fashion.

How you manage your social media customer support can be a dream come true, or your worst nightmare. It’s up to you how to handle it, so choose wisely.

 

Words by Bernadette Kelly, of director business development at ActiveWin Media 

 

Bernadette is a native New Yorker, starting her career as a telesales representative. She has managed large call centre teams in California before relocating to Manchester in 2010. Recently, Bernadette was selected as a judge for VOOM2016 to help Richard Branson decide which start-up would win £1 million in prizes.

New TouchCommerce platform enables ‘intelligent automated conversations’…

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The omnichannel customer engagement solutions leader, TouchCommerce, has unveiled TouchAssist, a new product which claims to enable call centres and brands to provide intelligent automated conversations; leading consumers to effectively self-serve across digital channels.

The new system, which combines virtual assistant technology from Nuance Communications and is available in 20 languages, aims to provide brands and consumers with the ability to have text-based, conversational interactions that blend automated and live assistance solutions, connected within a single web or mobile web interface and includes extensive targeting and analytics capabilities. Therefore, when the virtual agent is not certain of what the answer should be, a live agent can step into the conversation to give the right answer.

President and CEO of TouchCommerce, Bernard Louvat, said: “TouchAssist blends our powerful targeting, routing and agent-to-consumer communication technologies with the industry’s leading virtual assistant technology to help brands target, engage and converse with consumers in a more cost-effective way at the time that customers need assistance with their self-service experience.

He continued: “The power of TouchAssist resides in the fact that the agent and robot collaborate, improving knowledge and accuracy over time. This collaboration will pave the way to a future with fully autonomous chat bots and transform the role of chat agents into that of a Virtual Assistant Trainer. The RightTouch platform is the perfect technology environment to make that happen successfully for brands and consumers.”

To try out a demo, click here