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Creating an exceptional customer experience (CX) should be a top priority for every company, if not the highest priority. After all, if you do a poor job of keeping your customers satisfied, and feeling cared about and cared for, they’re not going to do business with you for long, or at all.
The risk is real, and it can really hurt your bottom line. A study by Accenture found that businesses in the U.S. lose about $1.6 trillion annually from customer churn related to poor customer service. And in a recent survey, 32% of customers said they would stop doing business with a brand they love after only one bad experience. (Could you afford to lose nearly one-third of your customers?)
Invoca’s research found that 63% of consumers will happily pay more for a product or service if they believe they’re receiving excellent customer service. That’s right: A majority of consumers are willing to pay a premium for a great customer experience. So, companies missing the mark with their CX efforts are missing out on potentially making more money.
All of this means that in today’s marketplace, where consumer expectations about CX are exceedingly high, your company needs to deliver not just stellar customer service, but also top-notch customer care. Not exactly sure what customer care entails? No problem. In this post, we’ll walk you through what it means and why it’s important. And to help you understand how to provide customer care, we’ve packaged up five essential tips to help you lay the groundwork for customer care success.
First, here’s a quick definition of the customer care concept: Customer care is an experience that goes far beyond customer relations or customer service. It relates to all facets and phases of the customer experience you provide, and it involves all the actions you take to help customers feel a sense of connection with and positivity about your brand, products, and services.
To understand better what customer care is all about, it can be helpful to visualize what this experience can look like in practice. Consider this example, which contrasts customer service with customer care:
A hotel guest with a pet dog arrives from a long flight for a lengthy stay at a hotel. As they unpack, they realize that in their haste to make the flight they forgot to bring enough food for their beloved pet. They call down to the concierge and ask if there is anywhere to buy pet food near the hotel, and the concierge duly directs them to a nearby grocery store. That is customer service.
Now, what if the guest calls the concierge, who — understanding the guest’s plight and the fact they just traveled six hours to get to the hotel — offers to have someone go to the grocery store for them? That is more than customer service. That is customer care.
And, if on a future trip to the hotel, that same guest — who informed the hotel upon booking that they were again bringing their dog — finds their dog’s preferred food waiting for them in the room when they arrive, that’s exceptional customer care.
Think of customer care as “going the extra mile” for your customers. You’re taking extra steps to anticipate your customers’ needs and find ways to delight them. That, in turn, helps you forge stronger bonds with your customers, which can help ensure their brand loyalty long into the future.
Customer care is important because it helps you grow your business. It can help you achieve superior customer retention. And extremely satisfied customers are also more inclined to provide excellent reviews and refer others to your business. Win-win-win.
Customer expectations are soaring, and businesses that prioritize exceptional customer care are reaping the rewards. Here are a few compelling statistics that underscore the importance of investing in this crucial aspect of your business:
Now that you have a clearer picture of what customer care is, and why customer care is important, here are eight tips to help you make customer care a priority and formal practice for your business:
In a recent article about the link between customer retention and company culture, Jayme Hill-Gardner, chief operating officer of ad agency and consulting firm Diamond Media Solutions, underscored that “companies, where their employees are happy and feel they are valued, will go that extra mile for their clients.”
So, customer care starts with your employees — and the supportive, engaging organizational culture you need to provide for them. If they’re satisfied working for your business, then they’ll be motivated to make your customers feel special, too.
Knowing where a customer is in their customer journey is vital to providing them with a great CX.
Identify the various touchpoints where a customer interacts with your brand — everything from visiting your website to making a purchase to calling customer service. Map that journey (create a visual representation of the customer’s experience with your business) to better understand your customers’ behaviors and needs. Then, audit that journey to determine where you might be missing opportunities to interact with customers and make them feel cared for and valued.
Auditing the customer journey takes work, but it will help you learn how to anticipate a customer’s needs, which is a key component of delivering great customer care. (Remember the dog food example?)
Just as important is actively listening to your customers and proactively gathering feedback from them, so you can help them solve problems before they occur and make them feel special by just knowing what they consider VIP treatment. (If you need inspiration for how to anticipate customer needs, check out this documentary about the historic, 5-star Savoy Hotel in London.)
Loyal customers are like diamonds. They are extremely valuable assets, so you should treat them like the jewels they are by offering a loyalty program that lets them earn awesome rewards (e.g., cash, products, experiences) for giving their business to you.
These programs can be point-based, tiered, paid, or value-based. Which one you choose depends on your business, and of course, your customers. And if you can provide a customer experience that’s hard to match, one day you may not even need to offer a loyalty rewards program. Just look at Apple.
You can never collect enough feedback from customers if you want to excel at customer care. So, ask for feedback regularly — including at the point-of-sale and after customer service interactions — and supplement it with data you collect elsewhere along the customer journey.
Most important, don’t forget to act on what you learn. One of the keys to delivering great customer care is demonstrating to the customer that you’re always listening to them.
Every customer interaction is an opportunity to build a relationship. Take the time to personalize the experience whenever possible. This could involve remembering customer preferences from past interactions, addressing them by name, or offering tailored recommendations. These small touches go a LONG way in making customers feel valued and understood.
While exceeding expectations is a laudable goal, avoid scripted gestures that feel forced. Instead, empower your customer service representatives to use their judgment to find genuine ways to surprise and delight customers. This could be offering a discount on a future purchase for a particularly frustrating experience, sending a handwritten note of apology for a mistake, or proactively recommending a product upgrade that would truly benefit the customer.
Customer care interactions are more than just resolving issues. Emphasize empathy and active listening within your team. This will allow your managers to train your representatives to acknowledge customer frustrations, validate their feelings, and truly listen to their concerns. The hope is to foster trust and understanding, leading to more positive interactions, and a higher likelihood of resolution.
As you review the list of customer care tips above, you may wonder what technology tools you can use to help implement some of those strategies effectively and ensure your business can deliver exceptional customer care outcomes. Invoca’s conversation intelligence software for analyzing conversations between call centers and customers is up to that task.
Here’s why: Phone calls are an especially important part of the customer experience. In fact, 68% of consumers say the phone is their favorite way to interact with businesses. These calls provide a wealth of insight into what your customers want and need from your business. And every phone call is an opportunity to provide a great customer experience.
But you do need the right tools to truly hear the voice of the customer (VoC) in these calls, and to help ensure your customer service agents are empowered to perform at their best in every interaction. By using Invoca’s platform and making the most of its capabilities, you can:
Invoca’s intelligent call routing delivers dividends by enabling companies to automatically steer callers to the best agent to assist them.
More than three-quarters of consumers surveyed by Invoca said they’re prepared to stop doing business with a company if they have just one bad experience. So, if you want to be known for providing amazing customer care, the last thing you want to do is carelessly pass a customer off to the wrong person to handle their issue.
Another benefit of using Invoca for CX insights is the delivery of intent data to your agents, which they receive even before they enter into conversations with customers.
For example, a customer is on your site and has several items in their shopping cart. They haven’t checked out because they have a question about the price of one of the items. So, they call the unique number provided on the page by Invoca. Before the agent even picks up the phone, they can see what’s in the customer’s cart, making the conversation easy and delivering a feeling to the customer that the business truly knows them.
Coaching your contact center staff on interactions with customers is one of the best things you can do to ensure exemplary customer care — but it’s often hard for managers to find the time to coach.
Invoca’s real-time delivery of call recordings, transcripts, and call scores provides automated quality assurance and the ability for you to coach using that data while conversations are still fresh in your agents’ minds. Of course, your agents can review the data, too, and self-coach if they prefer.
Phone calls are the richest source of voice of the customer (VoC) data, and Invoca’s conversation intelligence captures it for you. The solution uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide a detailed analysis of customer calls. Invoca’s Signal AI feature, for example, lets you automatically detect certain words or phrases you want to track. And Invoca’s Signal Discovery uses unsupervised machine learning to discover macro and micro trends happening in your customers’ phone conversations.
By using Invoca to flag recurring words and phrases in customer conversations that might be important to your business, you can identify frequent issues — and take steps to address them before they become bigger problems. And while your customers may not know your business is solving issues for them in the background, they’ll be more likely to have a positive customer experience because of it, which is what providing customer care is all about.
Here are a few key trends that will shape the future of customer care to keep an eye on in the coming year:
Customers are increasingly tech-savvy and comfortable using self-service tools. AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide 24/7 support, answer frequently asked questions, and even troubleshoot simple issues. This frees up human agents for more complex inquiries, enhancing overall efficiency and customer satisfaction. Businesses can prepare by investing in AI solutions that complement, not replace, human interaction or leverage AI for tasks like routing inquiries and offering initial troubleshooting steps.
The one-size-fits-all approach is no longer enough. Customers crave personalized experiences, and this extends to customer care. Leveraging customer data to tailor interactions, suggest relevant solutions, and remember past preferences will foster stronger connections and brand loyalty. By implementing a robust Customer relationship management (CRM) system to collect and analyze customer data, marketers can use this data to personalize interactions across all touchpoints, from email marketing to social media engagement.
Additionally, tools like Invoca's PreSense can give agents the data they need to personalize greetings and tailor phone conversations to meet customers' needs.
Today's consumers are glued to their mobile devices, and messaging apps are their preferred communication channels. Businesses that offer customer support via SMS, WhatsApp, or Facebook Messenger are meeting customers where they are. This provides a convenient and familiar way for customers to connect, leading to faster resolution times and improved customer satisfaction. It’s important to train your customer care representatives to effectively handle inquiries through these channels, ensuring a consistent and positive experience.
Don't wait for customers to reach out with problems. Proactive customer care involves anticipating customer needs and addressing potential issues before they arise. This can involve sending follow-up emails after purchases, offering product tutorials, or flagging at-risk customers based on past interactions. Analyzing customer data to identify potential pain points or areas where customers might need assistance will prepare your team to develop proactive communication strategies, such as automated email campaigns or targeted outreach based on purchase history.
While technology plays an increasingly important role, human interaction remains vital. The role of customer care teams will shift towards handling complex inquiries, providing personalized support, and building relationships with customers. Companies can prepare by investing in ongoing training and development for customer service teams. Equip them with the skills to navigate complex situations, use technology effectively, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
Want to learn more about how Invoca can help you create better digital-to-call experiences for your customers? Check out these resources:
Want to see Invoca in action? Request your demo.
