Improve customer service with software

Customer loyalty is essential to success. A recent study into brand experience, Forrester Study: Economic Impact of Qualtrics CustomerXM found companies that lead in customer experience outperform laggards by nearly 80%. It's no wonder that companies invest a lot of money in keeping their customers happy.  

One way to achieve that is by using modern, customer technology. For example, customer relationship management (CRM), which has been proven to improve customer retention rates by as much as 27%. Let’s explore what it means to modernise customer service processes.

Modernising current systems

A modern software system helps streamline your processes for dealing with complaints and optimising the customer service experience. A robust solution not only stores customer information and communication history but also helps identify the root cause of customer complaints. This insight leads to better decision-making and helps businesses deliver consistent experiences to their customers, creating a loyal following.

No customer wants to be handed from customer service office to customer service officer having to re-explain a situation. Tahbilk winery is an example of this.

Tahbilk grew significantly over the span of a decade into more than a just winery – they now house a massive distribution and sales operation. This includes the Tahbilk Wine Club, a large membership-based offering for customers.

The time had come for Tahbilk to move off their legacy software into a system to match their growth. It was also evident they needed an upgrade to enhance their Wine Club IT system to make inventory, customer orders and customer feedback more efficient.

Kiandra built a single system to provide online sales, phone sales, and cellar door sales. This consisted of real-time, single entry inventory management to reduce administration effort and potential errors.

The new system has also reduced the time it takes for a telesales person to familiarise themselves with a customer. Before the modernisation, it would take 2-3 minutes to work out who the customer was, and their buying history. After rolling it into a display panel, the process now takes 30 seconds.

The hazards of modernising systems

Driving for efficiency can have a negative impact on employees. It's essential to consider the negative effects of putting employees under stress and pressure to achieve that kind of productivity. Employees who are overwhelmed by workloads tend to lose motivation and engagement, leading to poor productivity and high turnover rates, which can negatively impact customer satisfaction and retention.

Incorporating training and change management is an essential part of improving customer service. If you adopt a new software solution or process, making sure every employee that handles is knows how to use it absolutely critical for success. Otherwise you’re potentially left with unhappy employees And customers.

The omnichannel platform

The list of platforms that customers are using to ask questions, issue complaints, or ask for help is too long to list. From traditional customer service channels, like phone calls and email, to platforms, like social media, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to customer service.

When a customer wants to get in touch with your business, they’ll do so on the platform of their choosing—whatever is most convenient for them.

Companies must also adapt to the ever evolving and expanding customer service channels to keep their customers happy. With more and more available platforms becoming avenues to customer service, having omnichannel customer service is crucial.  

This approach consolidates how representatives talk to customers and allows businesses to connect with customers on their preferred communication channels. With this system, businesses can access every past message for a customer, whether it was on email, chat, phone or social media. This feature enables quick response times and allows any team member to pick up on a conversation quickly, even if they have never spoken to that particular customer.

Monitor feedback

Business applications are a great tool for companies to monitor customer feedback and preferences that brands can use to improve the customer experience further. A good CRM system comes with useful feedback tools to track feedback and provides visibility into customer satisfaction ratings and complaints. Knowing what your business customer satisfaction levels are, will help you better implement processes and tactics to enhance and improve the overall quality of your customer service.

Customer satisfaction plays an important role within your business. It is one of the key indicators of customer loyalty, tracking customer complaints and dissatisfaction, and it is also the key to unlocking business product and services differentiation strategies.

Serving a good experience to your customers involves a lot of moving parts. A robust software system simplifies the entire customer service process, making it effortless for representatives to solve customer issues, improve satisfaction, and enhance brand loyalty. It can also help to ensure consistent customer service, which invariably leads to better customer retention rates. The recipe for customer success is straightforward – the happier the customer, the more loyal they will be.  

Learn more about how to future-proof your organisation with a custom software solution, contact us today.