Why Digital Customer Service Is Like a Wave
Imagine you’re on a sandy beach entering the water. Suddenly you spot a big wave coming towards you and you must rapidly choose between two options: surfing the wave or being pushed away by its force. What we’ve seen in customer service during these last 3 months is the rise of a huge wave of digital conversations. In fact, a large number of customers asked for support through social media, live chat, and messaging apps. So let’s see the main lessons learned from such volume peaks.
COVID-19 Has Accelerated Digital Customer Service Growth
Lockdown forced all of us to stay at home. It also led us, as frustrated customers, to rely on digital support to instantly deliver our queries. Consequently, while some industries were stuck in the mud, others such as online supermarkets, home retail services, telco, and remote work/education faced a sudden big increase in digital support volumes.
Last week, I talked with some clients and they all reported the same trend. They had to add new hires to their Digital Customer Service teams to face such strong demand. This infographic illustrates how home, health, and fitness customer service conversations have dramatically grown last April. You can get further insights and stats as per industry in Help Scout’s full article here.
Customers Could Tell Those Who Were Ready To Deliver From Those Who Weren’t
Now the cat is out of the bag. Customers easily realized where they could get effective digital support and where they hardly receive responses or just disappointing ones. (e.g. “we’re sorry for the inconvenience but we do not provide customer service through social media. Please try to call/send an email…”).
To put it another way, it is obvious which organizations had:
- NOT launched yet their Digital CustomerService. These companies had to start from scratch without proper tools (an omnichannel platform) and/or trained staff (a digital customer service team )
- Already started delivering Digital Customer Service. And even if suffering from high volume peaks, they could manage digital conversations thanks to their processes and highly skilled staff team
Related: 2 ingredients for a rock solid Digital Customer Service
Over To You
Digital Customer Service is like a wave that started way before this big tragic one and it’s bound to come back again on our shores. Because we’ve all become digital customers, we expect brands to smoothly handle digital conversations making our lives easier. Otherwise, we’ll switch to another provider. That’s why today, investing in Digital Customer Service is not optional. It’s the best way to nurture your business.
Have great conversations.
If you’d like some consulting or other help with your customer service, please contact us
Featured image: Copyright: ‘https://www.123rf.com/profile_samuraitop‘ / 123RF Stock Photo
Paolo Fabrizio
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