3 tips for using technology for better customer service

The advent of technology has transformed the face of business everywhere, in any area conceivable. One of the key areas in which technology has been harnessed to strengthen a company is the area of customer service. In order for your business to continue to grow in the midst of cutthroat competition, it is imperative that it maintains its competitive edge. One of the ways in which this can be done is to harness technology for better customer service.

1. Engage new customers

The first way that you can harness technology for better customer service comes in when you attempt to engage with new customers. You can leverage on current technology to help you in these efforts. The main idea behind engaging technology for this purpose is to draw new and curious customers in by being able to provide answers to their questions about your product quickly and efficiently.

One of the most powerful ways to harness technology to build these relationships is to integrate third party messaging apps into the process. These could include current popular platforms such as Messenger, WhatsApp, or WeChat (a popular messaging app in China). Following a customer’s initial attempt to start a conversation with customer service on a firm’s website, the conversation moves to a third party messaging app. This in turn allows for a continuous thread of conversation to flow between the potential customer and customer service personnel, or even a bot programmed to take on this function. This subsequently enables a more personalised and seamless way for companies to engage with potential customers. This is something that has worked well for 1-800-Flowers.com, a conversational pioneer on Messenger and Amazon’s Alexa. The company relies on external experts for customer experience design and bot technology, to assist them in building a bot-based commerce system. At the same time, it lets its trained staff interpret service questions from a customer for the bot, to allow for a response that feels more ‘human’. The result is a top of the notch customer service experience, for many happy customers who have testified to that effect.

2. Maintain your current customer base

Excellent customer service tends to be the key to retaining customers and boosting profits. Statistics from Business Insider show that 86 percent of consumers have stopped doing business with a company because of a negative customer service experience. In a fashion similar to the above, technology can similarly be employed to help you provide better customer service, and in turn maintain your current customer base. Technology once again is able to help your business’s customer service personnel communicate more efficiently with your current customers. This enables them to better aid your customers in solving any technical issues that may arise with the product, over platforms such as Skype and Facebook Message.

Related reading: 5 Tips For Improving Customer Retention And Loyalty

Furthermore, technology has also enabled companies to be better able to monitor various channels to gauge the customer satisfaction levels, and to identify the most problematic aspects of their products. This in turn allows personnel to better understand the problems the customer faces, and in turn makes them able to provide a targeted response to the issue that is both personalized and efficient.

3. Automate and utilise resources efficiently

Another question that you can ask with regards to how to harness technology is this – what can I automate to make my entire workflow more efficient? This impacts efficiency in that you can now divert your attention and resources towards building a better customer service experience for your customers. After all, something that technology definitely cannot replace is the sincerity that personally interacting with customers can convey.

The key to this, as mentioned, is automating your workflow wherever you can. For instance, you could use tools such as Hootsuite to help populate your social media platforms with pre-written content. You could also use such automation to help at certain stages of customer service, for example, using a tool to help send auto-reply notifications to customers that their request for help has been received, and that you will be responding to them shortly.

As you look towards these technological solutions, keep in mind that there too are technological solutions for your legal needs. One of the key things a customer looks out for when engaging a service is consistency of experience. These include the areas of payments and finances. Ensure you have in place the key legal documents that outline your payment practices, such as Invoices and Sale of Goods Agreements.

All in all, there are countless ways that you can harness technology to connect with your customers better. The rise of technology has no doubt posed many exciting and useful tools to help us build our businesses, and it is important for businesses to continue upgrading themselves with such tools.

This article is a guest contribution by Zegal and first appeared on the Zegal blog.

Zegal’s vision is a world where the business of law works for everyone. Founded in 2013, Zegal is the fastest growing Legal Tech company operating across the Asia Pacific and Europe. Today, more than 20,000 business users trust Zegal’s cloud-based legal software to create and sign legal documents online, work with lawyers to handle legal matters and implement best practice business processes. The result is SMEs saving time and money by actively managing the legal aspects of their business.

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