“I’ve contacted the support team over Whatsapp but it was just a waste of time! I’m not giving it a chance again” said a ranting customer. Well, if it happens, you’d better find the root cause and fix it as soon as you can. Otherwise you’ll have to deal with a rising number of similar complaints. As I’ve helped some company clients optimize their digital conversations flows, I share some case examples.
Why some conversational experiences miserably fail
[Disclaimer] the following considerations and examples refer to the use of Whatsapp, but you may experience similar pitfalls over other Digital Customer Service channels. Being that said, what are the key conversational areas where the experience may turn into a nightmare? Well, most of the times that happens at the beginning of the chat when the bot, AI agent or human agent starts the conversation. With this regards, having carried out several assessments for my client companies I’ve noticed these recurrent pain points:- Customer’s fatigue – it takes too many efforts (taps) before the customer’s able to explain the information they’re looking and / or to receive being addressed to the customer, before providing a first clear feedback. Consequently, the customer becomes rapidly impatient and nervous.
- Poor handovers (AI/chatbot to human) – meaning when the human agent takes charge of the conversation. In such a delicate moment, a delayed response, a cold tone of voice or – even worse – a question that had already being asked in the first virtual interactions literally kill the WHOLE experience.
- Redundant interactions – regardless of it’s a simple or complex matter, it took too many interactions to end the conversations. That usually happens because of customer service agents (virtual or human) to lack of proactivity and it affects both parts: customer satisfaction and team’s productivity!
💡 Best practices to deliver great experiences
When starting the digital conversation, make sure to provide the customer options with key contact reasons first. Then, accordingly, more specific and detailed ones that are linked to customer’s pick. Then take care of the handover, making sure that the customer appreciate the ‘human touch’. Empathy must shine like a diamond in the very first interaction that the human agent types. Last but not least, mitigate the number of interaction x each conversation leveraging proactivity: that’s paramount if you want deliver an outstanding customer experience!
About your digital customer service
As we’re getting towards the end of this article, let me tell you that all the above points are not rocket science. Nevertheless, still many companies are not paying enough attention to such details, except then complaining about their KPIs decline!
So, have you already got your digital conversations flows assessed and optimized?
Have great conversations!
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Credit image: Unsplash.com
