How to deliver amazing customer experiences

Winning a new customer is good. Turning them into a repeat customer is better. Developing a loyal customer is best. And loyalty comes from amazing customer service.

People will pay more for great customer service too, so loyal customers are more profitable. Why? Because everyone likes to feel special and no-one wants unnecessary hassle.

This isn't news: nine out of ten organisations already say customer service matters. What is news is that a third (thirty percent) of customers actually feel they receive a great service experience.

The pebble in the pond

On the other hand, failing to meet a customer's expectations is bad. They're unhappy and you've likely lost a customer. But it doesn't end there...

Unhappy customers tell their friends and relations about it. Thanks to social media and crowdsourcing apps, like TripAdvisor, people have a very big megaphone for their complaints.

It costs six to seven times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one - and considering Nielsen found that ninety-two percent of people trust recommendations from people they know and seventy percent trust consumer opinions posted online, one unhappy customer could end up costing you a lot.

So how can companies suture this service wound that leaves their finances and brand reputation bleeding?

Care Everywhere

Customers want seamless transition between different channels of support. They want whoever they speak to , email or online chat with to know their case history. They want the right answers at the right time. And they want to feel like you, as a company, care about their concerns.

The idea that infrastructure and attitude can deliver this is what Microsoft calls 'Care Everywhere'.

How to make 'Care Everywhere' a reality

One of the biggest mistakes companies can make is viewing a customer's purchase as a transaction rather than an interaction.

A transaction has an ending. The concept of an interaction is that it is part of something much larger, says Shep Hyken, author and customer service expert.

Here are seven top tips to help you bring 'Care Everywhere' to life and move from reacting to transactions to building relationships through interactions.

1. Have one view of the customer. A complete view of a customer, accessible from a single system, makes it much easier to provide a personalised and contextual interaction. Those aren't just buzz words: knowing what someone's bought before, or if they've already emailed you, can have a big impact on how well you can serve them the next time they get in touch. For example, housing association Amicus Horizon has seen its number of live complaints drop from more than 600 to just 44 over 18 months with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Reps have access to customer records at the touch of a button, meaning they can be more proactive and prevent issues before they escalate. "We're now much more evidence-based when we reply to customers. We have accurate, reliable and up-to-date data at our fingertips" says John Barr, Director of Customer Experience.
2. Empower employees. On average, customer service centres use between seven and twelve systems, meaning representatives spend valuable time replicating information and searching for what they need, instead of helping the customer. Weight Watchers solved this problem by using Microsoft Dynamics CRM and a three-hundred and thirty-one percent return on investment along with a twenty percent reduction in average hold time. "Dynamics allows me to shape my team around constantly adding business value, not keeping the lights on" says Mike Olsson, Director of CRM. Microsoft Dynamics CRM brings everything you need into a single app, available on any device at any time. This includes the information that representatives need to actually help the customer. It allows you to build a knowledge base that gives everyone access to a consistent source of information. This knowledge base can be updated as employees encounter new questions from customers and find answers by collaborating internally using tools like Skype for Business and Yammer. These tools help representatives to do their jobs. When they can do their job, they're happier. And happier representatives are twice as likely to deliver on customer satisfaction, net promoter score (NPS) and customer effort metrics.
3. Empower customers too. As Mark Macdonald says, "great information not only educates, it motivates". Keith Ross, an RMA Repair Specialist at POS Remarketing Group has found that using automated process workflows in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to broadcast updates to customers on their particular case or query "reduces the need for customers to follow-up on service requests and, ultimately, enhances customer satisfaction levels". Customers also want access to information that will help them solve their own problems. In fact, over two-thirds of consumers use web self-service to find answers to their questions. Using the same system that hosts your representatives' knowledge base, you can also provide articles, FAQs, images, videos and real-time blogs and feeds to your customers.
4. Let customers take the easiest path. According to Forrester, three-quarters of customers use three or more channels when interacting with an organisation - so it's probably no surprise that supporting multi-channel customer service can improve customer satisfaction by thirty-six percent. Customers expect a seamless transition between using self-service help on the web, through to emailing or calling a live representative. This means it's vital to have a tool, such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which recognises a customer - no matter how they are interacting with you - and records information that is immediately available to whoever needs it.
5. Cross-sell and up-sell. "Too often, businesses see customer service as a reactionary task rather than an opportunistic one", says Mark MacDonald. Watch for buying patterns and case histories that offer opportunities to promote a new product that will be of genuine interest to a customer. The Saudi Investment Bank uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM to do just that. "The figures speak for themselves", says Suliman Abdulaziz Al-Obaid, General Manager of IT and Shared Services. "Dynamics CRM has helped us drive up our overall bank revenue, increase our market share in consumer loans dramatically, increase our conversion and win rates and increase customer satisfaction."
6. Look for signs of bad service before they become complaints. Watch for abandoned carts or repeat visits to certain web pages and try to anticipate what's holding customers back from converting. It could be cost of delivery or a missing piece of information. Email them to ask and jump in where they didn't even realise you could help. Microsoft Social Engagement lets you monitor social media for brand, competitor and product mentions. You can use the results to trigger workflows or simply respond with useful information to solve problems as soon as you see any sign of customer concern.
7. See how you're doing. You can't easily improve what you're not measuring. Measure your NPS, customer satisfaction, first call resolution metrics and more. But also take a step back and look for patterns that could reveal deeper problems that trigger customer service interactions in the first place. You can easily feed the data in your Microsoft Dynamics CRM into Power BI and create dashboards and data visualisations that highlight trends and how one area of customer service is impacting another. For example, do you get a lot of calls after customers visit a particular FAQ page? If so, you may want to consider re-writing it. Finally, make sure you're asking the customer how you're doing. Microsoft tools can help you conduct feedback surveys, which are vital for cutting through the metrics and retaining the human touch that's so important for great customer service.

Do better

Customer service is a high-stakes opportunity for any business. Oscar Rickett recently wrote of what he terms the 'Kafkaesque' experience of customer service:

"In customer service we see the alienation of modern life. We are helpless before the endless rounds of bureaucracy, the many layers of deflection, the call centres located all around the globe."

Don't let that be your customers' experience. Minimise effort and frustration by using the right tools and maximise opportunities for building relationships and trust with your customers. You'll be amazed in the difference it can make to the bottom line.