Customers’ expectations are higher than ever when it comes to the quality of the experience they receive when buying from brands.
Enough brands are now providing a seamless, personalised service across multiple different sales channels that those that do not risk leaving customers disappointed.
For businesses looking to stay ahead of the competition and stand out, it’s imperative that they find ways to deliver this. A key part of doing so is the back-office, which provides the infrastructure for exemplary customer-facing service.
Hard drives not hard copy
For quality multi-channel experience, it’s essential that front-end staff have all of the available information in front of them when they are interacting with a customer. For a brand operating at anything but the smallest scale, achieving this is not feasible with hard-copy documents.
By automating document digitisation, customer correspondence can be fed directly into customer relationship management (CRM) software – meaning that agents can pull up client information in real time – helping them meet customers’ needs faster and build rapport more easily.
Parseq’s digital mailrooms are a key example of the kind of software businesses need to remain up-to-speed on their clients, while providing the best possible support to their employees, ensuring quality of service remains consistent at all levels of the business.
Erasing errors
Relying on manual processing for administrative and financing systems is time consuming and prone to human error.
Mistakes hinder firms’ operational efficiency, resulting in delays to customer service that will cause customers to view a business in a bad light, reducing their standing and possibly their market share over time as they lose customers.
Firms that regularly fail to allocate funds face a huge and costly burden of tracing payments. The customer communication cycle becomes wrongly focused on missed payments through several emails, letters, and debt collectors when in fact payment has already been made, severely impacting the overall customer experience.
Businesses can minimise these issues by implementing solutions such as payment allocation automation, which reduces customer headaches with lost payments, while freeing up employee time and greater resources for the company.
More time for the human touch
Customer experience technology and automation can unlock huge benefits to both customers and the companies they buy from.
One of the key ways in which automation improves the customer experience and organisational efficiency is by freeing staff and allowing them to focus on more complex, problem-solving tasks. While customer experience is often about efficiency, it hinges around the human touch to drive a business’ reputation for being friendly and approachable.
While most customers’ requirements might be straightforward and easily repeatable by an automated system, some will have more complicated problems, requiring bespoke solutions and emotional empathy. In these instances, a machine cannot deliver and only human representatives with enough time will be able to resolve the issues.
This work cannot function without technological support across the back office, allowing for stronger customer interaction that can make the difference to an otherwise stressful interaction, prompting recognition from your customer base and increasing the likelihood that your business will be recommended to others.
