2020 has certainly been a very memorable year, albeit for all the wrong reasons. The Covid-19 pandemic has served as a catalyst for unmitigated trouble. Economies have crashed, supply chains are broken, and businesses are struggling for survival all across the world.
Whilst all have struggled, the customer service sector has been front and centre dealing with distress calls, complaints, organising refunds and trying to cope with increased demands for services in an ever-changing – and challenging – environment.
The entirety of the customer experience needs to be reimagined. Under the conditions of the “new normal”, consumer needs and expectations has changed drastically as consumers interact with brands from the safety of their homes. Consumers expect to be listened to and for action to be taken on their rapidly evolving needs, so engagement and dialogue are critical. Brands that succeed will be rewarded as consumers make decisions on who they will remain loyal to.
New and innovative technologies need to be leveraged in order to survive the onslaught brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, here are three technologies that are helping businesses bring their best.
Speech analysis
A phone call is sometimes the last touchpoint before frustrations with an unsatisfactory service or product lead to brand abandonment. This makes the phone a valuable customer retention tool – especially when complemented by speech analytics technology. Modern speech analytics tools utilise AI to detect sentiments and predict impacts from the tone the customer takes, talk times, silence time, etc. This not only helps agents respond better but enables the business to establish a consolidated, single view of the customer and their journey.
Video feedback and analytics
Video is an incredibly popular medium. As such, companies should always utilise video as a touchpoint for customers as much as possible. While a year ago most of us would have only considered video calling our friends and family, the idea of capturing a 30 second video about a website experience, call centre experience or delivery experience is the new norm. Customer feedback videos are now making their way to the boardroom where revenue-impacting decisions are being made. Brands that implement video analysis technology are able to pick up on more customer feedback signals than via any other channel.
Social listening
There will be customers who simply want to voice their frustrations or offer their opinion without necessarily looking for a brand response, or those who feel more at ease talking to a brand under a social handle. Social listening tools can be used to help track social feedback, understand customer perceptions, recover at-risk customers, identify systemic issues to drive business improvements and even gauge how they compare to their rivals and competitors.
In today’s business environment, it is more important than ever for companies to listen to customers. Technology makes this task easier than ever. The onus is then on brands to take this information and be agile enough to adapt operations based on customers’ changing needs.
