Have you ever been associated with a brand that provides multiple product offerings/services but lacks in providing a desirable customer support experience?
In the new age of growing digital customer experience, omnichannel customer support is the way to develop a loyal customer base.
Now, the question arises, what is omnichannel customer support channel?
When we speak about a channel, it is a medium through which a company communicates with its customers. In the word of customer contact, a channel could be anything – an email, a phone call, social media, live chat, video calling etc.
An omnichannel approach is about integrating these channels with each other to provide customers with a seamless support experience. Wherein, every channel combines and relates with each other so that the customer can easily switch between them.
In a more straightforward way, the customer is offered with all or multiple options to connect with the company.
Let us understand the goals and needs of omnichannel customer support:
Goals of Omnichannel support:
- Being a customer-centric platform, the main goal of omnichannel support is to provide a consistent customer experience.
- The goal is to engage existing customers of the company and ensure that they get a seamless, consistent, and improved customer experience regardless of support channel being used.
Need of Omnichannel support:
- Statistics show that 65% customers contacted customer service at least once in the last month, and 48% have used about 3 to 5 different channels.
- Forcing a customer to stick to a single or few channels have had a negative impact on their overall experience.
- Customers feel annoyed when they are required to repeat their query every time when they switch channels.
- 54% of customers today have a higher expectation from customer service as compared to the previous year.
- 90% of people say that they will use self–support services if it was available.
- A business that adopts omnichannel support achieves a more significant customer retention rate year over year as compared to companies that do not.
- Customers will even pay 65% more to do business with a company that uses omnichannel support in customer service.
Benefits of Omnichannel customer service!
- More Power to the Customer
Omnichannel service helps in expanding the scope of customer service and engagement. It allows a smooth transition of communication between the channels by data integration. Customers today do not like to wait and prefer to connect with a company via any channel of their preference and at any time.By giving such preference to the customers, omnichannel support augments their experience. Furthermore, customers will feel that their choices matter to the company and are more likely to continue using the services for a longer time.
- Greater Customer Insights
Channels such as social media, chat, forums, webinars etc., leave a written trace of customer interaction. When companies organize these streams of data in a broader context, they can easily understand how their customer needs vary from channel to channel, allowing them to manage their operations accordingly.
- Increased Customer Satisfaction
75% of customers say that repeating their query repeatedly while communicating through different channels is the most annoying part of their customer service experience. And 45% say that they will abandon a brand if the support staff is not knowledgeable.Things are different with the omnichannel approach. When a customer sends an email, it routes to an agent’s queue. This way, the right agent can respond to the customer’s query, and if the agent is not able to find the solution to the problem by email, the same agent can transfer the interaction to a phone call with just a click and can handle the inquiry from there.Not only this, but the omnichannel tools will display the customer’s history on the agent’s screen. This way, the agent has all the information about the customer and can diagnose their problem whilst switching between different channels, without interrupting the conversation. This kind of customer service builds loyalty and increases customer satisfaction.
- Beating The Competition
Research from various companies indicates that the companies that employ omnichannel engagement strategies see 12% growth year after year, plus, they also see an increase in the number of customers associated with their brand.Omnichannel customer service is the future and being the first to offer this experience is a way to retain customers.
- A Potential Business Growth
Customers are likely to promote a service to their friends and families with which they have had a wonderful experience. An excellent omnichannel support experience can lead to word-of-mouth marketing and turn your customers into your promoters.A study suggests that a customer who is satisfied with the support experience will recommend the business to other people nine times.An increase in customer engagement will increase customer satisfaction. This will increase the customer retention rate and lead to higher revenues.
- Added Value
Omnichannel service is time and cost-efficient as compared to allocating greater workforce to the traditional channels. An Omnichannel strategy transforms the burden from an agent to a technological system. Being able to respond through time-efficient channels free up the agent’s time to undergo training and handle more complex issues. This is the added value to the organization..
When a customer has an inquiry or registers a complaint, they expect:
- Simple options to contact the support agent.
- Quick response from your team.
- A secure and effortless way to fix the issue on their own.
- A level of understanding and empathy.
- Quick resolution to their problems.
FBSPL (Fusion Business Solutions (P) Ltd) provides omnichannel support services to the customers and works on the ideal “keeping U first” approach, where U stands for the customer. Feel free to have a no obligation consultation call with our subject matter experts to discuss and explore more.
