Even if the customers want to be served quickly and quite many services have gone and are going online, customers still want human experiences. According to The Five9 COVID-19 experience showed that empathy and human connection between brands and customers are very important. Companies using contact centers should think about customers needs when architecting contact centers. Not only thinking about the technology, but also thinking what kind of people to hire for working in contact centers and also how to serve customers as personally as possible. Customers want companies to respect their time and let them engage on their terms. Even if there are nowadays quite many online options how to contact the companies, customers still, perhaps unexpectedly, prefer most the phone.
Steps for a better customer service
To make the most valuable customer service, companies should take a notice for couple of things: responsiveness and empathy. The companies should have to know their customers, meet them despite what channel they use to make a contact, empower them to find the information themselves if they want to do that, remember them, respect them, support them and assure them that the company will be there when needed (The Five9).
No customers, no money
I think customer service is the most important thing when talking about the companies that sell things or services. Without the customers, companies don´t sell their products or services and don´t get any money. It´s quite difficult for the company to work if they don´t get any money. I think in every part of the company´s action, you should think about your customers and the ways to serve them as good as possible.
Even if the world has gone quite much online and is still going in that direction, customers want to be served personally by humans, not just machines and technology. Sometimes it´s easiest and fastest to use for example chats or email, but if I have a bigger problem, I also prefer to use the phone and want to be served by a human being. Companies should also remember that older customers may not be familiar with the online ways to contact company and younger customers may not be familiar to use the phone. So that´s also one thing why companies should have many ways to contact them, but the customer service should be just as good and personal regardless of the contact method. It´s always a big plus if my customer details are easily found and the customer service person can see my previous contacts to the company. In that case can be said that the company knows me.
Good customers or bad enemies?
I think everyone wants to be served quite quickly, not just staying in line for minutes, even an hour. Companies should develop their contact centers to work well and have enough people to work on contact centers, so that customers are served smoothly and quickly. Having to wait in line or get bad customer service, company can turn their customers into enemies. It´s so easy to write bad review on social media rooftops and harm the company by that way.
Tips for the future
All in all, customer is the number one to remember when dealing with customer service and all the technology and details concerning that. All customers want to be treated as a human being. That is the most important thing to remember when studying this Customer Experience Management in Tourism -unit and of course especially then when we graduate and start working on tourism.
Things that were in eBook which I read for this reaction paper assignment, was mostly already familiar, but the eBook opened my eyes more for the perspective that despite all the online options, customers still prefer the old way, the phone, to contact companies. Sometimes the old way is better than many new ways and maybe my thoughts are not as old-fashioned as I imagined.
References
The Five9. eBook. Making Customer Service a More Human Experience.
