Yes, it’s true: you don’t have to be a software company to benefit from customer engagement software. If efficiencies created by advanced technology or robotic process automation do little to reduce customer frictions, find ways to deliver more value. Leveraging customer engagement software is one way to do this.
Create a Customer Portal
Customers love portals, where they can log-in to their accounts and perform administrative actions themselves.
Predominantly, they prefer the option of self-servicing at the time of their choosing. Picking up the phone and calling customer service may not always be feasible at midnight. If customers can log-in to a portal and take action themselves, they’ll be happier customers.
The customer portal should encompass all the services you offer. Ideally, your customers should be able to pay bills, make appointments, and change their subscriptions on your platform.
All in all, your portal should serve as a one-stop-shop for your customer. Customer portals also let users proceed at their own pace, digesting information at their leisure, and choosing which actions to take based on their own availability.
Self-servicing customers actually reduce daily operational expenses. Since your company won’t need to hire as many customer service representatives, you’ll save on the overall costs of doing business. Besides facilitating seamless communication, a customized portal can also let you “listen” in on your customers.
You can do this through a user forum. Set up topics your customers can chat about, and be sure to include a general section for a variety of customer service concerns. In this way, your customers can relay specific pain points you can address immediately.
Broaden Communications
The way you’re accustomed to communicating may not be advantageous for you. It’s important to accommodate the different communication styles of your customers.
Most consumers prefer communicating via text or chat. This holds true for both personal and professional matters. If you rely exclusively on phone and email communications, you may be missing out on key opportunities with your clients.
So, set up your website with text and chat capabilities. Improved communications can lead to lower customer friction points. That said, using the right communication platforms is essential.
With the rise in mobile device use, many consumers forgo checking voicemails on their landlines. In fact, text messages have a 98% open rate. Voicemails, on the other hand, integrate poorly with the modern lifestyle. Consumers crave real-time communication and view checking voicemails as a chore. In fact, 94% of customers won’t respond to voicemails from unknown businesses.
As far as emails go, full inboxes may lead to lower open rates. Consider this: 74% of customers have zero unread text messages while only 17% have zero unread emails. Overwhelmingly, consumers prefer text messages to emails or phone calls.
Use Social Media to your Advantage
No matter your industry, people love engaging with companies via social media. Some major companies dedicate entire teams to social media, so they engage directly with customers on the most popular social media platforms. In fact, some airlines communicate with customers on Twitter and resolve consumer complaints without ever leaving the platform.
While you may not need an entire team to handle social media, you should consider setting up accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
This will help people find your business and will serve as another avenue for you to engage with your customers. Implement giveaways, question-and-answer sessions, expert interviews, promotions, and surveys to communicate with your target audience. Above all, deliver great customer service. Here’s why it pays:
- 7 out of 10 consumers say that they prefer doing business with companies that provide excellent customer service.
- Outstanding customer service fuels loyalty and increases customer retention rates. Just a 5% increase in customer retention raises profits from 25% to 95%.
- A moderate increase in CX (customer experience) generates an average revenue increase of $823 million over three years for a business with $1 billion in annual revenues.
Build a Customer Engagement Software Solution With Entrance
In addition to using tools that already exist, like social media platforms or SMS texts, you can also create your own software solution. Sometimes, off-the-shelf software solutions fail to solve existing problems that are critical to business operations.
You can get some ideas from existing software to create a customized version of your own. Just because you aren’t a software company doesn’t mean that you can’t create a unique software solution — you can, and it may be better for your company than anything a software company offers.
Reach out and contact us to talk about all your customer engagement and software needs. Our team is here to help, and we can even help you brainstorm the best options for you and your company.