Satisfying the Impatient Customer

Today’s digital-savvy customers have no time for “good enough” interactions with your company. They expect to communicate with you at any time and receive an immediate, relevant response via whatever engagement channel they choose, whether that’s chat, email, messaging, social media, a self-service portal, etc. If you can’t deliver on that expectation, they have no qualms about taking their business elsewhere.

Customers now have the upper hand in the customer journey. With more ways to shop and less time to do it, they don’t just gather information and complete transactions quickly. They often want to get it done on the go, preferably on a mobile device, without having to engage in drawn-out conversations. Engaging with them on those terms, promptly and proactively, is the best way to capture their loyalty.

This is definitely a challenge. But it’s also an enormous competitive opportunity.

Why So Impatient?

Most customer inquiries involve low-level issues, like resetting a password or checking your return policy. Automating these requests through a chatbot or other form of self-service lets you address them faster, for greater customer satisfaction. It’s also more cost-effective, as this approach frees your customer support agents from routine, repetitive tasks so they can focus on more complex interactions.

As you move towards dedicating your contact center to more high-touch transactions, however, you still need to ensure those inquiries are personalized and efficient. If your agents have to click through ten screens in multiple applications before they can respond to a customer, your impatient customer can simply disconnect — not just for the moment, but permanently.

In fact, according to research by Bold360 and Ovum, 82% of customers reported that they have “stopped doing business with a brand following a bad experience.”

Responding in Real-Time

What if your agents had a single view of each customer, across channels, at every step of their journey? From the first time they engage, through the buying decision, and on to post-purchase support?

You could serve customers in the way they prefer while saving your agents time (never mind frustration). Moreover, with a view into past customer interactions, your reps could offer personalized, contextually relevant support in real time.

When your contact center provides the right kind of support, in the right way, at the right moment, you can forget about satisfying impatient customers — because you won’t give them time to lose their patience.

The twin pressures of increased customer expectations and zero tolerance for poor service aren’t going to ease up any time soon. Learn how to cope with them strategically in Bold360’s whitepaper, “Customer Engagement and Support in a Connected World.”