Your customer service department is an indispensable part of your operation. Ensuring that all of the questions and issues of your customers are answered and solved, and keeping those customers satisfied, is critical to maintain a competitive advantage. 

And, since your customers are the most important asset in your business, it stands to reason that anything you can do to increase the efficiency of your customer support department is worth investing in.

If your business wants to stay ahead in terms of offering a great experience, then a digital customer service strategy makes sense. After all, customers are becoming increasingly digital-first and have high expectations from their interaction with you.

Switching to a digital customer care approach offers a range of benefits that make it a winning choice for your business—we’ll walk you through just a few of those benefits below.

What is digital customer care?

Any customer engagement occurring through digital channels such as email, text messaging, chat, and social media messaging as opposed to traditional landline telephone interactions.

Six benefits of digital customer care

1. Faster response times 

Your employees’ time is valuable, and outdated support systems (such as requiring customers to dial a number and press button after button) can waste a lot of it. Live chat and chatbot software solve this issue by providing instant responses, meaning that questions can be resolved faster.

Live chat is an online communication tool manned by human agents while chatbots are an AI-powered feature that allows you to automate conversations. Both methods are perfectly suited to respond to smaller queries and concerns that someone wouldn’t wait 30 minutes in a phone queue for. 

2. Never miss a call again  

A Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system — which enables you to make and receive telephone calls over the internet — can help you avoid the negative impact of unanswered phone calls. With features such as Call Routing (connecting a call to the right agent), Call Forwarding (redirecting calls to available agents) and Auto-Attendant (automated answering, escalating, and routing of all incoming calls), you can ensure that you don’t lose interested customers and ultimately, your profits.

3. Offer 24/7 support 

Today’s customers want to be able to contact your business any time of the day and night. Offering them round-the-clock support will pave the way toward brand loyalty. With the widespread permeation of AI and machine learning, taking the form of chatbots and virtual assistants, it’s easier than ever to implement 24/7 customer support. This way, your customers will have little reason to complain about their queries going unattended.

4. Direct customer feedback and engagement

More customers are using social media such as Facebook to direct questions or give to businesses. Being proactive on social media means you’ll be able to quickly deal with incoming queries and comments. It’s also an opportunity to broadcast important information to a wider audience and impress potential customers with the way you’ve handled an issue.

5. A convenient way for customers to contact you

Customers’ expectations for fast and convenient communication are growing rapidly. It’s true that they still want to talk to real human beings but it’s much more troublesome to pick up the phone, punch in a number, and end up in a call queue. Digital channels such as email, social media, and self-help desks are a quick and hassle-free way for them to get in touch with your business and receive the information they need.

6. A seamless customer journey 

Throughout their journey, a customer will go through several touchpoints. They might, for example, seek product information from a chatbot today, ask a question on social media tomorrow, and send a follow-up email after a couple of days. In other words, interact with your business how and when it suits them. Offering all these channels, and allowing customers to pick up where they left off, will ensure a unified experience with your brand.

• RELATED POST: Four business processes you should be automating to save time

Takeaway

Digital customer care is becoming a crucial strategy for businesses to better serve customers. With the right digital tools and platforms at your disposal, you can deliver a more effective and engaging experience for your customers, and ultimately, earn customer loyalty. 

Be sure to keep your business’ current internet connectivity in mind. Going digital requires a rock-solid business internet solution to keep you connected to your customers without any frustrating downtime. Take a step back and look at how your current internet package is working for you. If you feel that it’s time for an upgrade, Nashua can provide you with bespoke wireless and fibre internet solutions to help you fully reap the benefits of customer service digitisation.