When customer care and social care meet
All businesses need to attract new customers and retain existing ones. However, the steps for...
When customers communicate with your company, they expect an immediate response and a personalized experience. In order to react to customer needs whenever they might arise, many companies are tending towards reliance on artificial intelligence. But, all that glitters is not gold. Turning your customer service into a fully automated system can come with some disadvantages.
The secret to an optimized and effective customer service is the balance between artificial and human intelligence, where the latter requires a team of fully qualified staff.
Solutions such as chatbots and virtual secretaries are the answer for successful customer care management. Based on artificial intelligence, these solutions, however, can never replace interaction with a human being. The future of customer care is therefore designed around what is defined as Augmented Humanity, which implies a digitized system at the center of which are increasingly specialized human agents.
The Customer Care Revolution
Customer care is steadily moving towards digitization, where machine learning, chatbots and mobile messaging allow for improved customer management tools. This, of course, boosts performance and positively influences the user's customer experience.
This technological revolution, however, means that staff members constantly need to be in the process of upskilling, as they require continuous training to perform at the skills level required. It is in this context that we speak of Augmented Humanity, where increasingly qualified agents are at the core of the system, able to guarantee empathy and human contact, in an effective technologically-driven environment.
Companies that provide such outsourced services are therefore important not only for extending these digital capabilities to businesses, but also in finding the right balance between the use of new technologies and human relationships. It is always about the human element, supported by technology, and it is this recipe that makes all the difference.
Customer Management: The role of the customer
During the purchasing process or when requesting information, the customer most often prefers to interact with a person, especially when it comes to important purchases. Routine processes, of course, are almost completely automated, but in the moment of a more specific need, the customer generally feels the need to interact with a real person, who is considered more qualified than a virtual assistant.
As an example of this need for the human element, with the use of a chatbot, there is an 88% reduction in calls to customer assistance lines, as users are now communicating with the company through the chatbot. However, only in 12% of cases, does this strategy result in an improvement in customer loyalty. When the user does not receive the required support, he/she is more likely to give up the product and forsake the relationship with the brand. A balancing of human contribution, brought by qualified and competent personnel, with innovative technologies is therefore the key to success.
The Customer Journey: Choosing between multiple possibilities
In the process of purchasing or requesting information, the user must be able to use the tool that best suits his/her needs in that specific context and moment. The various communication channels must be made available to the customer, in a mix of offline and online strategies. The digital contact points need remain an indispensable means to direct the assistance path for the user.
Consumers, however, engage in very different purchasing behaviors, which arise from a combination of their habits, product categories, and specific needs. The purchasing processes therefore vary greatly, both with respect to the type of customer and the product category.
Artificial and human intelligence must be combined along the customer journey, with the human being at the center, the pivot on which the entire experience revolves. Even if the process is largely supported by technology, the person in the middle of it all will continue to make a difference, because he/she is a real person interacting with real people. Again, it’s about Augmented Humanity, with increasingly qualified customer care agents, able to offer understanding and human contact in an augmented relationship, that is, facilitated and enhanced by technology.
We at We Are Fiber know every “secret” of customer care management. If you want to enter this world of opportunities, contact us.
Email: info@wearefiber.com
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