6 Signs your customer service solution is failing

In today's digitally-driven world, businesses must provide exceptional customer service to succeed. They have to keep up with their tech-savvy customers by using the right customer service tools. But as things change quickly, it's important to realize when your customer service tools no longer work for you. Some of these signs include struggling to add new channels for customers to reach you, being unable to gain meaningful insights from your data, still using old-school chat or unexpected bot-related costs.

In this blog, we'll look at six key signs that your customer service solution might be heading in the wrong direction. Whether agent efficiency is dwindling, your customer support team is subpar, or you're not seeing a return on investment, knowing these signs is important in order to evaluate if your customer service solution is helping your business provide seamless digital experiences. So, let's dive into these six reasons and learn how to fix them.

Digital interactions have changed how agents talk to customers, meaning they no longer only need to use telephones for customer service. However, businesses are now tasked with keeping up with the digital channels customers prefer to be in. According to Forrester, 55% of global customer support decision-makers reported an increased customer preference for interacting over digital channels. 

If you’re struggling to add new channels or integrations, Khoros can help you bring 30 channels, including chat, messaging, SMS, social, reviews, community, and email, into one intuitive agent desktop — no army of developers or extra budget is needed for adding new channels either.

Customer Experience (CX) analytics is crucial for any organization. Nowadays, we have easy access to analytics and data and it’s essential for your business to leverage this data in order to drive better results across the customer journey, especially when customer expectations are at an all-time high.

If you are manually manipulating your data to get the insights you need or struggling to quickly adapt to new issues and trends, there is a better way. The best solution is a digital tech that merges your structured and unstructured data, connects the dots, and uses the latest AI to give you the insights you need to improve your customer journey and impact your bottom line.

We surveyed over 1,000 customers and found out that live chat doesn't meet customer expectations. Customers today prefer solutions to be able to follow them across multiple platforms — and even devices — without having to restart their conversation. Consumers’ expectations and preferences have changed, which means so should your old-school chat.

Brands like Midco moved chat interactions to Khoros, one of the many reasons is the solution’s capability in allowing for asynchronous conversations in whichever digital channel their customers choose. As a result of this move, Midco saw a 460% increase in CSAT survey completion rate for chat and messaging channels, with improved CSAT scores.

With an asynchronous chat solution, customers can chat with you at their pace, in real time, or at any time. And since chats end when issues are resolved — not when sessions time out — asynchronous chat solutions offer a more accurate view of your CX.

Bots are a crucial part of your customer service solution — especially now more than ever.  Almost half, at 47%, of consumers prefer a website with a chatbot. And more so, Gen Z and Millennials show a strong inclination towards using chatbots in certain situations, at 92% and 93%, respectively. We’ve seen firsthand how bots can enhance productivity — read how Samsung improved efficiency by structuring and training the response team around digital channels and adopting automation and bots resulting in 13% of customer inquiries managed by bots.

It’s essential to create and update your bot, and if you need to ask your current solution provider for help, plus pay additional for it, you’re hindering your customer service strategy. With Khoros, you’re in charge of your own bots. You create a bot once, then deploy it across one, some, or all of your channels. And when you need to modify a bot, it’s easy to make the update yourself — but if you need us, we're here to help!

Contact center leaders face a seemingly impossible task: drive operational efficiency without sacrificing customer experience. However, maximizing efficiency doesn’t have to come at the cost of increasing agent attrition or decreasing customer satisfaction. That’s because, with a digital-first service solution, brands can completely eliminate this issue with a consolidated agent desktop and AI-powered real-time assistance.

Interactions from every channel come into a single screen, allowing agents to prioritize channels and respond without ever leaving the window. The customer profile information and interaction history automatically pop up on the agent’s desktop, eliminating the need for them to go to another screen to manually look it up. Putting everything they need to handle any interaction in one place reduces agent stress, minimizing the chances of human error and keeping workflows organized, ultimately increasing agent efficiency.

Read how Sony doubled agent efficiency with Khoros using streamlined service, allowing the team to provide quicker responses to public conversations, helping both customers and prospects. 

Feeling supported by your solution provider is vital for the success of your customer service solution. Your provider should feel like a partner, not just a vendor. One of our customers, Jetson, was faced with the task of choosing a partner to help reinvent their customer care and make their digital transformation happen in a short timeline. Listen to how they went about evaluating a partner they felt would meet the level of support necessary to achieve their goals. 

When making the big decision of switching solution providers, it’s comforting to know what support you have after you commit. One way to ensure your business is set up for ongoing success is through product coaching. It’s important that your solution provider commits to your success, providing everything from product and account management to support and professional services. This will help your team become experts, ensuring your brand is empowered to use the latest features or specific needs are addressed.

Customer expectations for a top-notch service experience are only increasing. If you’re facing any of these six telltale signs, your customer service solution is failing you. Don’t leave your mission-critical solution at risk. At Khoros, we believe product coaching is an invaluable tool — we’ve delivered over 10,000 product coaching sessions in just a few years to set our customers up for continued success. We are here to help you achieve customer service success — from making it easy (and cost-free) to adding new channels and integrations to supporting your team with complimentary product coaching sessions, we have you covered. 

Want to learn more? Visit us to schedule a chat.