Five Ways to Ensure a Balanced Customer Experience

Customer engagement is intrinsically tied to a satisfactory customer experience (CX). Businesses understand that engaging customers isn't just about providing a call center to answer questions and troubleshoot issues and that today's customers want a meaningful relationship with the companies they choose to conduct business with.

According to a 2020 study from Deloitte (News - Alert), person-to-person interactions were the most important factor for customers who felt they were valued by a brand. Below we have outlined five factors to help businesses balance meaningful human interactions while incorporating the best digital technologies for customer service.

1. Technology Investments

Solid investments in technology almost always pay off when it comes to providing meaningful customer interactions and engagements. Businesses should focus on automating back-office activities, enabling front-line call center agents to spend their time addressing customer needs and building relationships.

It is also important to build internal technology tools in support of call center agents. This enables representatives to resolve inquiries more quickly and efficiently through automation.

2. Social Media

Social media platforms are an increasingly important part of customer service and meaningful interactions. Disgruntled customers can easily share a bad review of a business on social media, leading to unpleasant results. They can just as easily share positive feedback, which is extremely useful for gaining new customers. Businesses need to stay on top of social media to ensure customers are getting the attention and feedback they deserve on those platforms.

3. Hire the Right People

Call center agents are the frontline of any customer service plan and businesses need to make sure they are making smart hires. Hiring some specialists may be beneficial for addressing niche problems, but businesses would do well to hire competent generalists who can handle a broad range of issues and interactions. Hiring managers should also make sure they are seeking out empathetic individuals who will provide caring and personalized customer interactions and focus on relationship building.

4. Training is Critical

Customer service representatives need to be properly trained to provide the best levels of engagement. That includes initial training upon hire as well as regular training and meetings to ensure agents are up to date on all business initiatives and company goals.

5. Reward and Affirm Agents
While training is important, rewarding successful agents can go a long way toward retaining employees for the long haul. Happy, successful, high-performing agents who feel valued by their employers will pass along those sentiments to customers. That will lead to better interactions and outcomes as well as longer-lasting relationships between businesses and their customers.

Edited by Luke Bellos