As someone who consults with businesses on a daily basis, customer service and the software platforms that can help achieve the best desired Customer Experience are forefront in my mind. So, I find it very difficult to turn a blind eye to horrible a customer experience when I, myself, endure one.
In this day and age, businesses MUST provide a top-tier customer experience, regardless of what channel of communication the customer wishes to use. Some include, voice, online chat features, social media, email, etc. In this instance, I decided to use the online chat feature of a retail company (I needed to get a status update on one of my orders and return it). As you can see (at the end of this article), they were not able to resolve my issue and I was then required to call them directly. If I wanted to talk to an agent, I would have done that in the first place. If companies offer an additional means of communication, other than direct calling, they must be able to demonstrate its value. There is no use in having a chat function if it cannot help customers who try to use it. It then only adds friction to the customer experience process as a whole.
A staggering 66% of customers will consider switching to a competitor after just one or two bad experiences. Not only will that 66% switch to a competitor after a bad experience, but they are even more likely to complain to friends, family, or publicly on social media about their bad customer experience (similar to what I am doing here). The effect of bad customer service is two-fold; not only will the company lose that individual as a customer, but you are then less likely to gain new customers because of the poor review that was left by the initial customer.
When polled, 24% of all responders said being forced to call when they wanted to use a digital channel (such as an online chat feature) is one of the biggest issues they had when interacting with a company. How can you afford not to fix this?
Sadly, supervisors and managers are most likely unaware that one of their agents is providing a bad customer service experience. If it is not reported directly by the agent OR by the customer, in the company’s eyes, it’s like it never happened at all. But with today’s technology, this should not be the case... Tracking and alerts on these software programs should be top of mind. Alerting when an agent says “I do apologize” would inform the supervisor of a problem, allowing them to take the necessary steps to jump in and help solve the issue, or mitigate the backlash of any poor customer experience prior.
If you’re waiting on me to call in and complain, it’s going to be a long wait in the queue. I’ll already be moving on to one of your competitors by then!