Look at this fact. According to Qualtrics, 78% of consumers forever change how they feel about a company based on a single interaction with their contact center. This demonstrates the significant impact your contact center has on the customer experience.
Understanding your customer’s expectations is step one in delivering a memorable customer experience that over time leads to trust and credibility.
Using this as a jump point, let’s take a look at the TOP 10 things customers really want from your contact center:
10. Customers want their call to be answered quickly
No one wants to wait on hold for an eternity to speak with a customer service representative. Not even with your snazzy playlist and informative messages playing in the background. Customers want their calls to be answered quickly and promptly. Period.
9. Customers want their privacy respected
When interacting with your organization, customers want their privacy to be respected. They don’t want their private or personal information shared without their knowledge. They need to know that it is safe, secure and treated with great respect.
8. Customers want knowledgeable customer service representatives
Customers want to interact with people knowledgeable about their specific situation and on the products and services you offer. They don’t want to be transferred from agent to agent or put on hold while the customer service representative seeks to find an answer to their question.
7. Customers want their issues resolved, quickly
Whether it’s through self-service options such as chat, chatbot or web functionalities, or a live agent, customers want their issues to be resolved quickly. The customer wants to feel like their issue is important and that they can obtain a quick resolution.
6. Customers want multiple interaction points
What’s good for one customer is likely not for another. It’s therefore important to provide customers with a multitude of communication channels from which they can connect with you. For quick questions and self-service capabilities, chat and AI-enabled features can be beneficial. Don’t forget about email, SMS and social media!
5. Customers still want human interaction
For detailed or challenging situations, live agents are best. Customers want to feel like their question or issue is important and that a human, not a machine, cares about them and their issue.
4. Customers want a flawlessly easy process
Here’s something often forgotten. No matter the interaction channel, the customer should easily be able to reach you without frustration. Designing processes with the user experience in mind will greatly improve how a customer journeys through your contact center.
3. Customers want to provide feedback
It’s important to give your customers an opportunity to provide their feedback as it relates to the customer experience. Look at the massive popularity of customer reviews – everyone wants to give their opinion, so leverage this to your advantage by surveying your customers every chance you get.
2. Customers want a personalized approach
Nothing’s worse than feeling like a number. By personalizing your services at every interaction point (automatically completing form fields, not having to repeat information, etc.) and then following up these interactions with a personalized email, text message or phone call sends a clear message to the customer – we care about you Jane Smith or John Doe.
And in top spot…
1. Customers want to be treated with respect
No matter the channel or the situation, customers want to be treated with respect and want to feel valued. At every touchpoint, at every interaction, your priority is to ensure that customers feel loved.
In the end, it’s about treating customers the way you want to be treated. It’s about listening to their needs and putting measures in place to meet them and then monitoring and measuring to ensure that you are exceeding expectations.
Create customer experiences that not only keep customers delighted, loyal and engaged but also inspire them to tell their friends and family about the amazing service you provide. It can be the one thing that makes your company standout in a packed crowd.
