We are in the midst of the mobile age, a time in which consumers are continually connected through a series of mobile phones, tablets, smart watches and other devices. It’s hard to believe we have gone from using mobile phones only “in case of an emergency” to now becoming so dependent on them that we check our phones literally hundreds of times per day. With this dependency comes the expectation that mobile users will have immediate and easy access to whatever program or information they need in real-time. Living in the generation of Google and Siri, this expectation has been extended to customer service, where the demand for fast, reliable and accurate information and solutions can mean the difference between retaining and losing a customer.
While the consumer demand for mobile access is far from hidden, many businesses still avoid or struggle to cater to the mobile audience. Relying on old methods of customer service interaction not only reduces the efficiency of the customer service department, but raises consumer frustration levels. Consumers today drive the relationship they have with brands and expect to make those connections through the evolving variety of tools available to them. This includes through mobile search, where users are expected to generate 27.8 billion more queries than desktop search by 2016, according to a report by BIA/Kelsey. Without the proper search support and interface for mobile platforms, consumers struggle to view and access the needed information, and become increasingly frustrated after multiple attempts. For many consumers, that can lead to abandoning a purchase or seeking out a competitor offering a better mobile interface.
As technology becomes more personalized to the connected consumer, so too should customer service. To provide efficient, personalized and accessible mobile customer support, businesses need to turn to automated services and virtual agent technology. Developing cohesive interactions across a variety of channels, virtual agent technology can help businesses meet the needs of the connected consumer by supporting the following strategies.
• Improving the quality of mobile search: Aligning with the expectations Google has set for today’s digital users, virtual agent technology works to provide consumers with fast and correct answers to their questions the first time. Utilizing a set of customizable rules that define the types of natural language questions that should match with a particular response, businesses can ensure that consumers are receiving the right information, regardless of how they pose the question. A secondary layer of “smart search” is the virtual agents’ ability to catalog queries in real-time and provide dynamically generated relevant follow-up information to each user. This improves the flow of the service interaction and can even lead to answering questions on products or services for which the customer was unsure of how to ask.
• Offer convenient ways to access to your customer service team: While most consumers will go directly to your mobile website for inquiries, you need to be sure you are servicing all your customer channels. This requires offering service options on social platforms as well. If your mobile customers feel frustrated with a product or your brand, they are likely to take to Twitter or Facebook to vent. Offering improved self-service options on both of these platforms can allow a business to get in front of a customer before they go “over the edge” and offer the same high-quality customer experience they would expect on a website. For the prospective customer, getting in front of them through social media can also help finalize a purchase decision by smoothing over any doubts they may have.
• Give your customer service a voice … literally: With Siri and other mobile bots appearing in today’s market, up-leveling your brands tools to incorporate voice technology eases access and improves the likeliness that your current and prospective customers will engage with your brand. For 70% of customers, their current and future buying experiences are solely based on how the customer feels he or she is being treated, according to McKinsey Research. Incorporating automated voice command functionality through a business’ app or website allows the “on-the-go” user to feel better connected to your business and will improve the likelihood that they return each time they have a question.
• Ensure that each experience is personalized to the customer: Everyone has a customer-service nightmare story, where either working with an automated phone line or an agent, they had to repeat their question multiple times and in the end still don’t receive the needed answer. Using automated technology, you can ensure that these sorts of situations are avoided by leveraging customer data through an omni-channel strategy. Streamlining processes, virtual agents can refer to customer information and recent history to better connect and individually serve each inquiry. Automated technology also can unify a company’s channels to provide one seamless customer experience. This allows a query that began on Facebook to easily move to the company’s website and then to a phone call with a real agent without the customer having to repeat a question or reference any research that has been done along the way. This ensures that a business is providing the same standard of mobile customer service across the board.
In today’s mobile world, the customer wields enormous power and drives expectations about how, when and where companies should deliver customer service. Most importantly, companies simply need to earn trust from consumers, by remaining a reliable and accessible resource regardless of how the mobile market shifts and evolves the way we live and work. Automated technology can support this reliability by utilizing simple customer data that businesses already have to offer options and services that align with the top applications and mobile tools seen today. At the end of the day, the mobile customer is no different from other customers. It’s not a big-data strategy, but a human strategy supported by aligned and cohesive technology.
As VP of sales and marketing, Mike Hennessy holds responsibility for all aspects of the company’s sales and marketing strategy and operations. Accountable for the company’s worldwide sales strategy and execution, Hennessy brings IntelliResponse products and solutions to new markets, and identifies new business opportunities, while driving profitable sales growth for the company. Previously, Hennessy was the VP of marketing and alliances for Truition, an international retail and manufacturing software provider that was acquired by CDC Software. During his years as a Marketing consultant for a number of world class technology focused consulting firms, Hennessy managed a client base that included Amazon.com, Dell, The Royal Bank of Canada, Hewlett-Packard and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. Hennessy holds a Masters in Business Administration from Queen’s University, a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing Communications from Seneca College and a Bachelor’s Degree from Mount Allison University.
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