Customer service can make or break your business. As a result, many companies leverage customer service to differentiate themselves from other businesses. Consider this: the average business loses half their customer within five years, and the cost of bad customer service is around $75 billion annually. Every customer wants to feel appreciated and valued, but when you’re running a small business or are overwhelmed with customers, making each customer happy can be a struggle. That’s where automation comes into play.
The modern software development cycle is a great example of how automation can completely change an industry and help you grow your business. Traditional methods of development involved hours upon hours of manual testing prone to human error. Today, cloud-based applications and tools such as a container registry automate the testing process so developers can focus on building great code. Similarly, with the right tools, you can spearhead your customer service efforts and maximize efficiency and productivity. Here’s what you need to know:
Utilize a Chatbot
Chatbots are becoming more and more prevalent in customer service. Chatbots utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to help your customers solve simple issues around the clock. Of course, there will always be instances where a customer needs a human representative to solve that problem; just because you have a chatbot as a first point of contact doesn’t mean that customer shouldn’t be able to easily have their issue escalated to live customer service (during business hours, of course).
Aside from 24/7 assistance, one of the biggest perks of chatbots is that they can handle a high volume of tickets at once. In some cases, they may be able to process simple transactions, such as an additional charge for quicker shipping. If you get on board with chatbots early on, you should be able to scale your business nicely. The more a chatbot gathers data, the more it will understand the type of requests you get, which can help you make smart decisions about how you run your customer service moving forward.
Customer Support Portal
Customer support portals like ZenDesk and FreshDesk allow you to prioritize the customer experience and keep track of customer conversations across a variety of different channels. Today, customers are turning to businesses through a myriad of platforms; sometimes they access support through social media, and other times directly through their website. Cloud-based customer support software allows you to spearhead customer service from anywhere.
You’ll be able to take advantage of call center functionality, live chat, leverage machine learning bots that analyze incoming ticket requests for you, and offer powerful rerouting tools to get your customers where they need to be. Some software systems also allow you to integrate with other types of software to ensure your customer data remains in-sync with your other business tools.
Use a Retargeting Tool
With a retargeting tool, you can drastically reduce the instances of cart abandonment, giving you the opportunity to earn more money for your business and build stronger rapport with your customers. Roughly 81% of consumers will abandon their cart before they make a purchase. If you don’t have methods in place to prevent this from happening, you could lose valuable long-term customers and a lot of money.
Retargeting allows you to connect with customers who have already demonstrated an interest in your business. Specifically targeting people who have added to their carts and left your site gives you an opportunity to win them back. There are plenty of retargeting tools you can take advantage of, such as AdRoll, Google AdWords Remarketing, Facebook retargeting, and Perfect Audience.
ReferralCandy
ReferralCandy is a customer loyalty program platform that makes it easy for your business to manage its rewards and retain customers. After all, keeping current customers is much easier than retaining new ones, and leveraging a rewards program is a great way to do that. This tool is great for spearheading marketing campaigns of all shapes and sizes. Once you set up your rewards program, your rewards are automatically paid out, and you’ll be able to track traffic sources and see which of your customers are among top referrers.
