October 22, 2014
Achieving greatness as a call center requires going above and beyond simply meeting required expectations. According to a recent , this does not necessarily mean religiously following traditional customer service philosophy. More customers are coming from a younger generation raised on technology; the old techniques won’t work as well anymore.
The article cited which found that Millennials make up a higher percentage of the customer base than before, and will outnumber Baby Boomers in 15 years. Since they are more likely to buy groceries from a convenience store than a grocery store and prefer upscale fast food restaurants to traditional ones, speed and efficiency are more important to them than friendly service.
Millennials are more likely to consult their social networks online for a purchase than an industry expert. When they need support, they prefer to go online to find a solution before speaking to a CSR ( – ).
An omni-channel approach to customer support is going to be the best way to help the traditional and non-traditional customers. The old-school customer who wants to interact with a person will get what they want and the millennials will get the speed that they want.
Omni-channel systems must also keep track of the context of every customer interaction. If a customer has visited a self-service portal, sent email and instant messaged a CSR, they don’t want to have to rehash everything when making follow-up contact with the next CSR.
This tracking has to go beyond tracking one incident – it means keeping history on each customer. Knowing a customer’s tendencies makes it easier to accommodate their unique preferences and better manage call queues based on urgency.
A one-size-fits-all approach to customer support is not going to cut it in 2014; the customer base is more sophisticated than that. A winning strategy accommodates all the different possible means of communication, is speedy and efficient, eliminates aggravation and provides customers with more than just answers – it provides them with the .
