Three Ways Customer Support Is Reshaping Retail
By Anand Janefalkar, UJET
As consumer values and priorities are shifting towards a more multichannel and digital experience, we are watching the retail industry evolve right before our eyes. However, whether you’re online, in a store, or in an app, simply having a great product and a competitive price is no longer enough. According to the 2019 State of Service report by Salesforce, 80% of customers now consider their experience with a company to be as important as its products.
Limited time offers, flash sales or referrals might be good for a short-term fix, but retailers that want to truly outpace their competition need to take a different approach. In order to truly capture the voice of the customer and create a more personalized and streamlined experience for customers, retailers need to look inward at the customer support organization and the contact center. Here are three ways retailers can leverage customer support to create the ideal customer experience.
Gathering Data And Feedback
Your contact center and support agents arguably have more daily interactions with your customers than anyone else and have direct insight into who your customers are and how they are interacting, connecting, and feeling about your products and services. Today’s contact centers provide the data-driven context and automation needed to keep pace with customers. They also are a premier location for retailers to tap into in order to paint a real-time picture of who their customers are, how they are using their products and what improvements can be made.
It’s All About The App
According to App Annie’s State of Mobile 2019 report, in 2018, U.S. consumers spent 60% more time in shopping apps than they did just two years prior. Mobile shopping is the next frontier of retail, but creating a unique mobile experience goes beyond exclusive offerings and QR codes. By securely leveraging in-app information and capabilities such as purchase history, previous support issues, text, photos and videos, retailers can automate incoming support issues and safely direct customers to the right agent, expediting the entire process. Customers today communicate with each other through multiple channels, such as voice, text, images and more, so it’s only natural that retailers use these channels as well.
Be Where Your Customers Are
Retailers know this better than most: you can’t reach your customers if you’re targeting the wrong places. For most, this means, are they shopping online or in the store. However, some of the best cross-sell and upsell opportunities can come from a better understanding of the different channels customers are using when they are reaching out for support. This can be extremely helpful for marketers in particular. For example, if the insights from your support team show that the majority of your customers reach out via your mobile app, then leveraging in-app messaging could be an effective way of driving future updates and announcements.
Like many other industries, retail is becoming driven by technology. As competition becomes more intense, retailers need to explore every option at their disposal that can give them a competitive advantage. For most, this means exploring third-party research data or advertising campaigns, both of which come at a substantial cost. In reality, the most effective and efficient way for retailers to capture the voice of their customers is to partner from within and leverage the contact center and support agents to create a customer experience that is second to none.
As Founder and CEO of UJET, Inc., Anand Janefalkar has 15 years of experience in the technology industry and has served as a technical advisor for various startups in the Bay Area. Before founding UJET, he served as Senior Engineering Manager at Jawbone, and also previously contributed to multiple high profile projects at Motorola.