How Technology Has Transformed Customer Service for the Better?

In the late 1990s, I used sites like Fabmall and Maalamall to do online transactions.

I was not sure if it would be secure.

So, I made only low-value purchases online. Whenever there was an option for Cash on Delivery (COD), I always opted for it.

Today, we don’t have such insecurities regarding online purchases and payments.

E-commerce in India changed when IRCTC launched its online railway ticket booking portal. The fact that it was a public sector unit made it easily trustable for customers. People slowly started to use it, and online transactions became the norm over time.

Besides, organizations like Amazon made making purchases easier, and the reassurance they provide about the security of your transactions made the growth possible in the segment. 

This is how technology has evolved in the Internet commerce space.

Similarly, technology has had an enormous influence on every vertical and horizontal. When we take customer service, technology has drastically influenced how we provide customer experience.

The Influence of Technology on Customer Service

When you buy a product, you buy on the promise that it will meet your needs. You would undoubtedly need after-sales support.

Earlier, the only option to reach customer care or service was to call and explain your challenges. They would provide a resolution or direct you to a different team for the solution based on their understanding.

Then, organizations started including toll-free numbers, making it easier for customers to reach them, and added email and web chats as a channel for communication. After which, IVRs, self-service in the form of knowledge base, FAQs, and videos cropped up.

Then came the social revolution, where customers can directly reach you on your social channels. Now, we have added mobile channels as well to the mix. Now, we have AI conversational bots that can understand the context and address customer needs.

We provide multiple options for customers to reach us when they need something. All of these are available 24/7.

We believe in the saying, “Customers are the reason why we exist as a business, and when in doubt, we err on the side of the customer.”

Would you believe we haven’t had a customer churn in India in the last 6+ years?

That is the power of the service that we provide. As a customer, you would always be able to speak to someone 24/7. Besides, we resolve queries within hours and not days. This has been the main reason for zero customer churn in our business.

Our SLAs Are Different

We have external as well as internal SLAs. Our external SLAs would discuss our response and resolution times for different priority items.

Regarding internal SLAs, we don’t just blindly respond to emails. We have communicated with our customer service people on the process of reassurance and resolution.

For instance, we would acknowledge the problem and list out the possible resolution and the timeframe it would take to resolve it.

24/7 Accessibility

Assume that your operations don’t allow you to staff your customer support or service 24/7; you can still provide 24/7 accessibility through self-service and AI-driven chatbots.

Customers can get help with their inquiries 24/7 through chatbots, knowledge base, and FAQs.

Priority Support

I am a premium customer with my bank. So, whenever I call customer care, they recognize me by my mobile number and try to connect me with my relationship manager directly. If the relationship manager is unavailable, they connect me with a live agent.

I don’t have to go through IVR messaging or choose options for my needs. I’d always get help from a human being.

Intelligent routing makes this possible by recognizing the phone number and routing for exceptional customer experience.

Social Media Mining

Today, if customers are dissatisfied with your service or offering, they can rant about it on social media.

Technology allows you to mine social media for positive and negative comments, allowing you to respond to them immediately.

Acknowledgment and reassurance are the most significant factors when it comes to customer complaints.

What if you don’t mine social media for comments about your business?

The damage would become permanent, and you’d lose customers faster than you gain.

Personalization

With insights from data, you can personalize your offerings to the ‘T’ for your customers.

Amazon’s recommendation engine is a big-ticket contributor to its online sales. The recommendation engine suggests products related to your purchase and those bought by people who belong to your demography.

Look at Netflix. It is so popular because of its ability to recommend suggestions based on your viewing preferences.

Customer Feedback Loop

With technology, you can easily collect feedback from your customers.

For instance, I recently bought a bunch of T-shirts from an online retail outlet. As soon as the product was delivered, I received a message asking me to rate the quality of their packaging and shipping, with few well-defined options for me to choose.

After a day, I received a message asking me about the quality of the fabric and the fit and any other feedback I had.

This was a breeze for me to offer feedback and suggestions on a few improvements.

After that, I received acknowledgment of my feedback, and they also spelled out what they intended to do with my suggestions. They also sent a discount coupon that I can use on my next purchase for having taken the trouble to send them feedback.

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Technology has revolutionized customer service by providing convenience, immediacy, personalization, and accessibility.

It has shifted the focus from reactive to proactive support, with businesses using data and automation to enhance the overall customer experience.

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