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A Step-By-Step Guide on Delivering Superlative Customer Service During a Pandemic

A Step-By-Step Guide on Delivering Superlative Customer Service During a Pandemic

Customer service professionals are going out of their way to assist people during the coronavirus pandemic. Positive experiences can generate more loyalty with customers, they'll inevitably purchase more from you. But, delivering great customer service is not easy at this time, try out these following tactics to make it easier.

In a very short period, COVID-19 has overwhelmed lives and livelihood across the globe. We are seeing a paradigm shift from face-to-face communication to screen-to-screen. The question that industry leaders face in this pandemic is: What is the best way to connect with your customer in a 100% virtual world? The answer is a virtual environment where you can have online meetings with your employees and customers to provide them valuable information.

Thanks to the advancement in technology we are living in the digital era, however, there is still a lot of work that has to be done when it comes to working remotely. Online shopping and delivery services have gained a lot of prominence recently.

Although the collective effort is to work together to assist each other to get through this difficult time, it is never a bad idea to have your eyes glued to delivering great customer service.

This is where a virtual conferencing tool can be extremely useful. It is during this state of crisis when organizations can take the advantage to build up trust and loyalty of your customer.

As millions of customers stay in isolation, the primary way to adjudge the customer experience is by the way a business delivers their experiences and services to meet their needs with empathy, concern and care.

During pandemics, the industry leaders come forward to comprehend the long-term effects on customer behavior. You need to keep an open mind and a close watch on changing customer preferences. So, what might be the best way to do that? The answer is to deliver superlative customer service during the pandemic. Let’s now look at a guide to help you achieve this endeavor.

1.  Transform All the Physical Support Operations to Digital

There was a time when all the customer support operations were carried out manually. But, in this digital era that we are living in, digital transformation has become the need of the hour. This has made entrepreneurs change their business models and adapt to the new market reality.

Interestingly, this change has been driven by the customers instead of the companies. Today, customers want desired information quickly, which has made them impatient and resulted in smart customer service to combat this exclusive condition. All in all, it is the customer journey that dictates the strategy. 

To keep up with the demands of this new kind of “always connected” customer, it becomes essential for your business to try digital technology to deliver top-notch customer service. The good news is most of the organizations have a strategy in place to put the customers first.

So, what needs to be done to ensure your business starts with digital transformation? Let’s find out. 

Selecting the apt technology to power up your digital strategies during these trying times is crucial. This is where organizations are adapting to agile systems. A lot of businesses today understand that technology is essential for digital transformation. The next thing that comes to mind is personalized customer experiences. 

Today more than ever, your customers want you to treat them as special individuals. One way to do that is by recognizing their personal preferences and purchase history. With the help of the right VR tool, it is possible to decipher this information.

The final thing is, customers today expect responses within an hour. They even expect responses on weekends. This instant gratification has led to an on-demand, 24x7 customer support.

Since everything is happening in real-time and so you need to offer personalization, accessibility and immediacy to win this cat race in the long-run. Today, customers feel restrictive on a single platform. They browse in-store, share feedback through mobile apps, shop online and even enquire about their doubts to support teams on social networks.

This has made organizations the need to create a single digital profile so that customers can interact with your business without any confusion.

 2. Implement Online Support Tools like Live Chat Software

Surveys have shown that live chat has a 92% consumer satisfaction rating. This is the highest rating compared to phone support, social media, and email. Live chat has been around for decades now.

However, in the pandemic, it is the best thing possible to increase the availability of your business support and gain popularity in customer service. Let’s now look at some of the things that you can do to leverage the live chat software in the best possible way.

The live chat feature that you include in your virtual communication tool needs to be easily accessible. By accessible, we mean customers should not spend too much time on searching and scrolling through your website to find a representative. While implementing the software, ensure to ask the following details:

  1. Name
  2. Email
  3. Phone Number

This gives you the time and provides adequate information for your agents to assist the customer in a very swift and efficient manner. Have an inbuilt typing indicator in your live chat software. By having a typing indicator you let the customer know that an agent is present for resolving their concerns.

For example, a customer asks a question but the agent needs some time to conduct the research and type the solution. Instead of showing a downtime, the agent can send a script like, “I understand what you are referring to.”

The customer, in the meantime, sees a typing indicator while the agent writes the solution. This way, the customer knows that their question will be addressed and does not think there is a glitch or problem with the live chat platform

3. Leverage CoBrowsing Technology for Real-Time Query Resolution

CoBrowsing is one of the effective techniques adopted by companies to ensure superlative customer service. It enables direct interaction with the customer’s machine as if they were physically present.

The best reason for adopting cobrowsing technology during a pandemic is it gives a definite edge to the customer service representatives to get a resolution to the problem swiftly as they can view the screen as it appears on the customer’s device. 

It provides a faster rate of response time which would have otherwise taken a lot. And with less time spent on customer queries, the representatives can divert their attention to customer service thus increasing their efficiency.

Cobrowse technology eliminates the problem of ambiguity when it comes to explanations provided by the customer. It provides real-time solutions to the customers. Certain customers are skeptical about filling up tedious forms. This gets true in the case of banks.

With the help of co-browsing, customers can easily resolve this concern as the representatives can view the customer’s screen and fill up their forms without wasting any time. 

4. Provide training to support agents via video conferencing software

During the pandemic when most of the people are stuck in their houses, with the help of video conferencing software, it is possible to give the training to support agents so that they can resolve the concerns of the customers most effectively. It also gives them much-needed confidence in providing accurate customer service most of the time.

So, you can always develop training programs for your employees and then take their online meetings to explain to them the key pointers and ensure success for your business.

5. Enable the Use of Remote Collaboration Tools like Slack for Higher Productivity

While working remotely, you need to give your representatives a definite edge so that they can provide the best support to your customers. One way to do that is by enabling them with a remote software that consists of remote collaboration tools like Slack, Google Calendar, Outlook Plugin and Microsoft Office 365 Add-in, etc. so that they can effectively resolve the concerns of customers with minimal fuss. 

Delivering Superlative Customer Service During the Pandemic

The pandemic should not stop you from delivering top-notch customer service for your business. We are aware of the phrase, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

By following this step-by-step guide you can always deliver superlative customer service without any worry during the pandemic. Remember, at the end of the day, the customer is the king and if you can meet their demands, your business is bound to grow. So, what is stopping you?

Dhruv Mehta is a Digital Marketing Professional. In his free time, he loves to write on tech and marketing. He is a frequent contributor to Tweak Your Biz. Connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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