Creating an ongoing relationship
Know how to leverage key moments on the customer journey
Customer expectations have evolved. Consumers are looking for a continuity in their interactions with your brand. They want conversations that don’t end after an email or phone call but keep on going until their request is completely resolved.
They want to be able to give feedback, or pause a conversation and take it up where they left off — all without having to repeat themselves and without compromising on security. That’s what we call the continuous conversation.
This concept not only meets customer expectations, it also benefits operational efficiency. Switching associates during a resolution can not only impact the immediate customer experience, but also leads to loss of information, longer handling times and a lower overall service quality.
An authentic relationship allows your associates to create closer ties with the customer, thus creating more relevant upsell opportunities and improving value generation for your brand.
Continuing conversations can achieve a customer satisfaction increase of up to 30 points and reduce repeat contacts by 40%.
A dedicated space for conversations
A good conversational strategy requires a platform capable of hosting these conversations.
First, this space should be easy to access for both customers and associates. Second, it should offer the possibility of contextualizing each contact and conversation with photos and documents that help resolve the issue at hand. Third, it should be capable of seamlessly transferring conversations between text, voice and video channels according to customer or business need.
The easiest way to set up such a space is to integrate it into the brand’s website or mobile app. However, this approach might lack the proactivity needed for matters requiring urgent customer attention.
In those cases, we recommend the use of “hot” channels that your customers are already familiar with, such as SMS and messaging.
Key moments
A continuous conversation is at its most efficient when applied to key moments in the customer journey — complex situations in particular.
For example, we helped a major European telco optimize the way it accompanied customers who were moving to a new home. Thanks to the way we used conversational SMS, customer satisfaction went up 30 points.
The success of this conversational strategy depends on associate engagement and expertise. It also requires a team of conversational specialists and the capacity to question existing structures and explore new possibilities.
Get your teams on board
Your teams are at the core of your project’s success. Your associates shouldn’t need much convincing to get on board with ongoing conversations — these types of interactions are a lot more rewarding.
However, to avoid disappointment and frustration, you need to prepare your associates for new tasks such as working across multiple channels.
It’s crucial to supply them with the right tools — high-performance platforms such as Innso, Genesys and Sprinklr — but it’s just as important to give them the power to take action.
Don’t just drop this strategy on your teams. Make sure to involve them in the transformation process, as we do, to avoid dissatisfaction and frustration from customers and associates alike.
