6 Technologies Benefit Your Business

Years ago, all it took to operate a successful business was an innovative product that consumers desired. After that, everything else was secondary. You could succeed with relatively high prices. You could even get by with subpar customer service technologies. Today, though, that’s no longer the situation.

Modern consumers have higher standards than ever. They aren’t contented with just a quality product any longer. They also insist on businesses treating them well and will make future purchase decisions based on that.

According to a survey by American Express, 33% of consumers now say they’d contemplate transferring companies after a single instance of subpar service. Conversely, 93% of consumers report that they’d likely make repeat purchases from companies with outstanding customer service.

All of this means businesses need to treat customer service and customer communications seriously. Fortunately, doing so is simpler than ever. Especially for enterprises prepared to deploy the latest technologies. Here are the 6 most essential ones they can use.

1. An Omnichannel Contact Center Infrastructure

One of the finest customer service technologies businesses can use is an omnichannel contact center platform. They’re typically software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions that help businesses centralize their consumer communications.

The idea is to ensure no consumer request remains unnoticed or unanswered. Plus, most contact center platforms offer AI-powered features like automated SMS and text response and advanced integrated voice response solutions.

Most importantly, however, contact center platforms can double as a business phone system, facilitating phone communications between employees and consumers. This also enables customer service agents to connect consumers with subject experts.

For example, if a consumer identifies a problem with a product that originates from its manufacturing, the agent might bring the product’s designer or manufacturing manager into the conversation. Then, not only can they deliver the most appropriate response, but customer feedback also goes to the correct employees.

2. Email Management Solutions

Believe it or not, email is still one of the most critical consumer communication channels today, particularly among Millennials. As a consequence, the average worker receives about 74 emails every day. Customer service representatives may receive an order of magnitude more than that.

This all means that businesses have every incentive to invest in an email management solution. This can include email software with sophisticated categorization features and AI-powered autoreply functionality.

There are also plugin-based options that can extend the functionality of existing email solutions. Those are ideal for enterprises with preexisting email systems they don’t want to give up on. Some solutions are also oriented toward administering outgoing marketing emails, making them useful for incoming and outgoing messaging.

3. Live Support Conversation Solutions

One of the challenges businesses confront in their efforts to enhance their customer service is the need for immediacy. According to surveys, 90% of consumers expect answers to their customer service inquiries immediately.

To satisfy that demand, businesses either have to spend a fortune on personnel or invest in technology that enables fewer employees to manage more inquiries. One of the best methods to do the latter is to invest in a live support chat solution.

Live support conversation is a preferred customer support technology. More critically for businesses, however, it generates some incredible opportunities for customer service automation.

Today’s finest live chat software solutions often let businesses add things like interactive chatbot support, which can satiate customer queries with no agent interaction. Solutions like that can lower business customer service costs by up to 30%. Plus, they do it while enhancing customer service outcomes.

4. Social Media Management Solutions

Even though plenty of businesses don’t intend for customers to use social media for customer service, many do it anyway. That means businesses have to pay heed to incoming messages on their social channels whether they want to or not.

And this is more universal than it may seem. History is already replete with tales about businesses gaining significant points with consumers via social channels and others who missed the ball utterly.

To ensure an appropriate response via social media channels, it’s a good idea for businesses to invest in a social media management solution. Such solutions unite multiple social platforms into a single management interface.

They enable the business to see who’s saying what at a glimpse. That way, they can promptly get consumer queries and complaints into the appropriate hands. Otherwise, an irate client who falls through the gaps might go viral and harm the business’s brand.

5. Sms Management Software

Text messaging is another channel consumers adore to use when they want support from the businesses they patronize. As a result, it’s mission-critical for businesses to have the infrastructure required to receive and respond to communications arriving via SMS.

There are a variety of SMS management software solutions that work well for this purpose. However, using a distinct SMS platform may make seamless communications difficult for customer service agents.

Fortunately, many omnichannel communications platforms include SMS management integrated right in. So a business that’s already invested in one may already have the necessary functionality.

Or it might be possible to integrate a third-party SMS solution into its communication platform. That way, incoming SMS messaging can filter into a unified inbox where all email, phone, and other communications aggregate for triage and response by customer service representatives.

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6. A Consumer Self-service Portal

Although an AI-powered FAQ is one of those customer service technologies that empowers consumers to assist themselves, businesses can go much further. They can construct an entire customer self-service portal with numerous ways consumers can answer their queries and assist each other.

Many consumer self-service platforms are straightforward to set up. With them, businesses only need to contribute their branding, product information, and other relevant data.

With a customer self-service portal available, customers will have a single location to go to access all of the business’s customer service options. They can discover contact information, access support chatbots, initiate support tickets, and even discuss their issue with other consumers.

What’s more, customers now broadly expect enterprises to have comprehensive self-service options. According to a survey by Microsoft, 90% of consumers worldwide indicate they expect this from every business they interact with. So launching a self-service portal is a simple method to enhance customer service outcomes.

The Final Principle

The conclusion here is that modern consumers now demand outstanding and responsive customer service from businesses of all sizes. It’s no longer feasible for businesses to leave customers waiting for support, even for brief periods. Customers want immediate responses across various communication channels and will take their business elsewhere if they don’t get it.

By deploying some or all of the customer service technologies detailed here, businesses can meet their customers’ demand for service without spending a fortune or significantly scaling up their customer service operations.

At the end of the day, making strategic investments in this area will lead to happier consumers, improved customer retention, and recurring sales. In other words, they’re investments that will pay for themselves many times over in no time.