Go mobile or go home. As we do our best to look into the future to see where customer service trends are headed the one area that is spotlighted for 2015 is mobile. We already saw movement toward mobile last year and we expect that this will only strengthen in the upcoming year.
Mobile, Mobile Everywhere
With smartphones and tablets becoming more powerful, and more seamless and rich applications available for mobile devices, consumers will expect to be able to interact effortlessly with companies.
As of now, it seems the retail industry will be most impacted by mobile use and shopping experiences will be drastically altered. As mobile payment options continue to proliferate, we expect to see mobile commerce increase as a result.
What this means for companies is providing a satisfying digital experience will become increasingly important. As technology continues to dominate our lives, customer service delivery needs to be handled through these mobile devices. This will require much more than a patch or quick “add-on” feature to your current website or mobile optimized software. As we move forward software will become the brand. Making mobile software the priority will dominate the industry as more than 50% of adults currently use a mobile device and 76% of millennials do. In 2014 the total number of visitors to websites from mobile devices exceeded those from desktops. There is no getting around that mobile is here to stay.
The Customer Experience And Mobile Devices
The same basics of customer care apply no matter how a customer is accessing your company. Continuing to focus on providing quick answers or solutions and meeting customers where they’re at remains important. That being said, customers are turning to their mobile devices to solve problems so companies need to make sure that their software allows customers to get the answers they’re looking for. If customers can’t quickly access your company or find information on your products or services, you’ll lose them to your competitors who are more readily accessible.
Here are four tips for making sure you are mobile-centric in your customer service delivery:
- Make it effortless. More than 52% of customers will abandon an online purchase if they can’t access a quick answer. Customers expect to be able to communicate with a business across multiple channels from their mobile devices. Ensuring that customers can access your via phone, live chat, e-mail, social media, and messaging is becoming more important.
- Equal knowledge across all touchpoints. This is where your training team kicks into high gear. As customers access your company across multiple channels and touchpoints, your employees need to be operating from the same knowledge base so that answers are unified and coordinated. Empowering agents to offer personalized and engaging service, no matter how the customer is reaching out helps foster customer loyalty.
- Data is your friend. Before mobile devices disrupted normal service delivery channels, companies relied on data collected from agents and departments that had contact with the customer. The same holds true for mobile CS delivery. Monitoring the multiple channels that your customers communicate allows you the opportunity to take the pulse of where your customers are at.
- The agent still matters. Customers correlate a good agent experience with higher satisfaction ratings according to a Forrester report. Training will remain important to ensure agents are able to provide quick turnaround to answers or solutions when a customer reaches out.
The mobile domination shouldn’t come as much surprise as we’ve seen its impact over the past year. What is new is the reality that this isn’t a passing phase that can be ignored or downplayed by companies. To remain competitive will require making mobile a priority and possibly redesigning software to best accommodate the customer’s expectation that she’ll be able to access your product or service from her hand-held device. Continuing to focus on thorough training and paying attention to delivering excellent customer care remain the same, what is changing is how those services are accessed and delivered.