Get the Most out of Customer Conversations

Learning Objectives

After completing this module, you’ll be able to:

• Explain the agent’s role in the digital experience.
• Explain the customer’s journey to get their problem solved quickly.
• List the proper tools that agents require to service customers quickly and efficiently.

From Scripted Transactions to Personalized Interactions

It’s a whole new customer service world. Digital channels like chat, SMS, self-service sites, social media, and many more are on the rise, and growing. And that’s changing the role of the service agent.

No longer are consumers picking up the phone to reach customer service agents. Instead, they’re opting to try to solve their problem digitally. This shift creates two big changes in the way service agents must interact with customers.

The New Role of Customer Service Agents

1. Self-service: Many of the emerging digital channels (self-service portals, chatbots) don’t require an agent to man the interaction, or they enable an agent to handle multiple cases at once. And that’s a good thing. It lets you free up agents to spend more time on critical cases and value-add activities, and less time clearing up a backlog of cases.
2. Seamless service interactions: By the time a customer decides to speak to an agent, they don’t want to brief an agent on their issue thus far. They just want the agent to fix their problem fast. This means the agent needs the tools to have all the customer’s information before they even say hello. Agents also need instant access to product experts with deeper knowledge, so that they can provide an answer quickly and easily.

Redefine Customer Service Representatives in a Digital World

We’ve looked at the impact of the multichannel digital channels on customer service agents. So how can you use these changes to refocus an agent’s attention on what can enable them to deliver even more amazing service?

One of the best things you can do is to implement processes and resources to prevent an issue from being escalated to a customer call. All those service complaints are being replaced by digital self-service channels. Customers don’t have to pick up the phone to get the mundane done. Things such as refunds, placing orders, and reactivating accounts are automated via digital self-service channels. Now your agents can focus all of their energy on the less mundane issues.

• Improving service paths: This includes constantly updating the self-service portal, fine-tuning success metrics, and incorporating self-service paths into customer histories.
• Focusing on critical cases: That means not only handling escalations, but giving input on success metrics and helping to design new escalation paths.
• Creating happier customers: Automation lets you reallocate agent resources more efficiently.

These are just a few ways agents can make service improvements with the help of a full suite of digital channels. The result? Your agents can work more proactively and think analytically and creatively, leading to a better customer service experience for everyone.

Get a New Toolkit for the New Era in Customer Service

Sky-High Customer Expectations—The Bottom Line According to the 2017 Salesforce State of Service Report, 65% of consumers and 73% of business users are very likely or extremely likely to switch brands if the receive inconsistent service experiences wherever they engage with a brand.

We know that if your customer calls a service agent and has to re-explain why they’re calling and what their issue is, that’s a big problem. This customer service toolkit offers customers the service experience they expect, including the ability to get customer data at their fingertips and a view of a customer’s entire service journey. Agents who have transparency around which articles a customer accessed in the self-service site can get instant answers.

• Did they ask a question?
• Which products do they own?
• Did they have a contact via mobile or chat?
• How did that conversation go?

Sending an agent into the digital world without these tools at their disposal is setting them up for eventual failure.

Say hello to the Lightning Console from Service Cloud Unify your agent experience with the world’s first Lightning-powered customer service platform. Now agents can get a 360-degree view of every customer at their fingertips, all in one console. Manage cases faster, track customer histories, view dashboards, and a lot more. All in a single view. No multiple tabs. No switching software.

Resources:

• State of Service Report