Customer communication is fundamental to any business.
Illustration: Freepik
Efficiently communicating with customers, resolving their issues, and answering their questions earns you their trust. You’ll see this reflected in both your sales figures and the reviews people leave you online.
However, the reverse is also true. Bad communication is one of the most frustrating issues that customers face. Unanswered emails. Hours spent on hold. Incompetent agents on the line. All this can easily result in lost business and bad reviews. In fact, 65% of customers have ditched businesses before due to a bad customer service interaction.
So what can you do to avoid this? How can you step up your communication and provide a stellar experience to customers in 2022? Here are three strategies to achieve that goal.
One of the biggest sinks of time and resources in customer communication are disparate communication channels.
For instance, many businesses are still working with PBX business phone systems, a regular old email client, and maybe a Facebook page where people can message them.
That is not enough in 2022. Especially if you’re dealing with large numbers of customer interactions.
Instead, consider moving all your communication workflows to the virtual sphere.
Thanks to voice over internet protocol (VoIP), voice and video calls can now be routed over the cloud. Modern virtual business phone services and contact centers allow you to access your business numbers from anywhere through desktop and mobile apps.
Going further, there are platforms that help you centralize all of your communications. These are called UCaaS - Unified Communications as a Service - platforms. They typically include voice and video calls, conferencing, messaging, live chat, virtual fax, email, and other communication channels.
The major advantage of UCaaS platforms is that they help you eliminate friction losses. Your team no longer has to jump between channels. Instead, they can efficiently take care of customer needs - no matter how they reach out.
Modern business communication platforms come with a wide array of productivity tools, many of them AI-based. For example, interactive voice response (IVR) uses natural language processing to allow callers to state the purpose of their call in their own words.
Then, the AI can either route them to the best available agent. Or it can take care of routine tasks - like giving account information or scheduling meetings - directly. In either case, the customer won’t have to languish in a call queue, or listen to endless iterations of “press 1 for-”.
Chatbots, too, can efficiently take care of routine requests on your website and on various social media channels. Your agents won’t have to deal with trivial requests such as booking or canceling appointments. Instead, they can focus on handling more complex issues to your customers’ full satisfaction.
Another application of AI in communication is documentation. Algorithms can easily transcribe entire customer conversations. Then, these transcripts can serve as valuable information for future interactions. Or you can use them to review your communication efficiency.
A final way to harness AI to step up your communications is analytics. AI and ML are fantastic at sorting through huge amounts of data and identifying patterns. Analyzing your communication data can help you pinpoint room for improvement.
One advantage of cloud-based business communication is that you can easily integrate your communication tools with other business platforms your team might use. These include digital marketing suites such as Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign, customer relationship management (CRM) software like Salesforce and HubSpot, or productivity apps like Trello and Todoist.
Consequently, you can automate many workflows that are manual now - and save a lot of time.
For instance, you can automatically push customer communication data from your UCaaS platform to your CRM.
As soon as a call with a customer about resolving an issue is over, the transcript - plus an automatically generated summary - are stored in your CRM.
Then, if a customer calls again about the same issue, your agent can pull the relevant records in a heartbeat, and get an instant overview of the problem. This saves the customer from having to recount the entire history of their interactions with you.
By moving your communications to the cloud, harnessing AI, and automating workflows, you’ll be able to increase your efficiency in 2022, and give your customers a fantastic communication experience.
Illustration: Freepik
Efficiently communicating with customers, resolving their issues, and answering their questions earns you their trust. You’ll see this reflected in both your sales figures and the reviews people leave you online.
However, the reverse is also true. Bad communication is one of the most frustrating issues that customers face. Unanswered emails. Hours spent on hold. Incompetent agents on the line. All this can easily result in lost business and bad reviews. In fact, 65% of customers have ditched businesses before due to a bad customer service interaction.
So what can you do to avoid this? How can you step up your communication and provide a stellar experience to customers in 2022? Here are three strategies to achieve that goal.
Move to the Cloud - Consider UCaaS
To start with, it is high time to move your communications to the cloud if you haven’t done so already.One of the biggest sinks of time and resources in customer communication are disparate communication channels.
For instance, many businesses are still working with PBX business phone systems, a regular old email client, and maybe a Facebook page where people can message them.
That is not enough in 2022. Especially if you’re dealing with large numbers of customer interactions.
Instead, consider moving all your communication workflows to the virtual sphere.
Thanks to voice over internet protocol (VoIP), voice and video calls can now be routed over the cloud. Modern virtual business phone services and contact centers allow you to access your business numbers from anywhere through desktop and mobile apps.
Going further, there are platforms that help you centralize all of your communications. These are called UCaaS - Unified Communications as a Service - platforms. They typically include voice and video calls, conferencing, messaging, live chat, virtual fax, email, and other communication channels.
The major advantage of UCaaS platforms is that they help you eliminate friction losses. Your team no longer has to jump between channels. Instead, they can efficiently take care of customer needs - no matter how they reach out.
Harness AI
Next, you can harness artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to make your customer communication more efficient.Modern business communication platforms come with a wide array of productivity tools, many of them AI-based. For example, interactive voice response (IVR) uses natural language processing to allow callers to state the purpose of their call in their own words.
Then, the AI can either route them to the best available agent. Or it can take care of routine tasks - like giving account information or scheduling meetings - directly. In either case, the customer won’t have to languish in a call queue, or listen to endless iterations of “press 1 for-”.
Chatbots, too, can efficiently take care of routine requests on your website and on various social media channels. Your agents won’t have to deal with trivial requests such as booking or canceling appointments. Instead, they can focus on handling more complex issues to your customers’ full satisfaction.
Another application of AI in communication is documentation. Algorithms can easily transcribe entire customer conversations. Then, these transcripts can serve as valuable information for future interactions. Or you can use them to review your communication efficiency.
A final way to harness AI to step up your communications is analytics. AI and ML are fantastic at sorting through huge amounts of data and identifying patterns. Analyzing your communication data can help you pinpoint room for improvement.
Automate Workflows Through Integrations
A third way of making sure that your customer communication will be top-notch in the coming year is automation through integration.One advantage of cloud-based business communication is that you can easily integrate your communication tools with other business platforms your team might use. These include digital marketing suites such as Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign, customer relationship management (CRM) software like Salesforce and HubSpot, or productivity apps like Trello and Todoist.
Consequently, you can automate many workflows that are manual now - and save a lot of time.
For instance, you can automatically push customer communication data from your UCaaS platform to your CRM.
As soon as a call with a customer about resolving an issue is over, the transcript - plus an automatically generated summary - are stored in your CRM.
Then, if a customer calls again about the same issue, your agent can pull the relevant records in a heartbeat, and get an instant overview of the problem. This saves the customer from having to recount the entire history of their interactions with you.
Conclusion
Communication is key in business - key to customer satisfaction and, consequently, business success.By moving your communications to the cloud, harnessing AI, and automating workflows, you’ll be able to increase your efficiency in 2022, and give your customers a fantastic communication experience.