So many of the technical innovations of the modern era revolve around automation, but sometimes you need a human touch. When customers interact with your business, they want to know that they are being heard by a person.
Whether you offer services to individuals or to larger organizations, when a problem arises, that customer wants to know that they have a human being working with them— not just an AI with pre-programmed responses.
That’s because the strict criteria that AI works with can lead it to tell the customer no when a human might be able to find a way to say yes and make that customer happy. At the very least, a human can explain a no so that the customer doesn’t seek to replace your services with those of a competitor.
However, artificial intelligence can make customer interactions and data collection move faster and more efficiently. So how do you strike a balance between innovation and customer expectation? How do you go about humanizing technology?
Put the Customer First
What do your customers need from you? How do they interact with you? What are the pain points? Will they get the same information no matter how they reach out? These are questions you need to have the answers to.
The digital customer experience (DCX) is the experience your customers have when they seek you out online. It can include chat, phone, and user interface with your website and branded applications. DCX can involve multiple touch points with your organization.
In order to provide a strong DCX, you need to ensure that you have a strong grasp on the following vectors:
Your customer information must be kept in secure, accessible digital spaces like the cloud. If a customer needs to talk to multiple people or navigate several AI menus, they need to trust that everyone they work with has the same, correct information.
Make sure you know how your customers interact with your organization. Do your due diligence to see what your customers experience. If you aren’t sure how to get a truly accurate picture of the customer experience, TEAM IM has a specific insights tool for this very purpose. If you get frustrated in your system, chances are good that your customers are having an even worse time.
Understand your customers’ habits and needs so that your communications to them are always relevant and well-timed. A proactive approach to crafting digital experiences can generate positive customer interaction.
Understanding these principles and making them part of your customer-first approach will help you understand how to balance your use of AI and human customer interaction solutions.
Risks of Going All-Digital
Relying on automated DCX solutions is attractive. Saving money and focusing your team on other aspects of your business seems like it would make sense. But there are risks that come with digitizing customer experience.
Customers don’t like it when it feels like an organization is not willing to take the time to cultivate a relationship with them. And an all-digital customer response system will feel sterile and impersonal.
The money you may save by drastically reducing human-to-human customer interaction can be lost to high churn and low loyalty. Why should someone stick with you if a competitor takes the time to understand their needs better than you?
Giving your customers a personal touch isn’t just a buzzword. It is a vital approach to your DCX. By knowing when to switch from automated menus and chat windows to live interaction, you can generate loyalty, repeated business, and positive word of mouth.
How Do You Strike the Balance?
Recognizing the need for humanizing the digital experience is one thing, but how do you actually strike the proper balance between technology and humanity? What do you need to prioritize?
Stay Customer Focused
This cannot be said enough. Put the customer first. And not just for the initial purchase but in the post-purchase and follow-up stages as well.
Make the customer the center of your service processes. Understand how they navigate your touch points and discover the pain points along the way. Ask for feedback frequently and use it to improve your processes.
Optimize Your AI Usage
AI has a place in your DCX. The key is to have processes in place to seamlessly blend your AI and human team members.
When customers have specific questions, an AI can often handle the interaction quickly and efficiently while giving the customer all the help they need. It’s when those customer queries get more complex that a human hand is needed to guide the ship.
Optimize Design
While call centers, branch offices, brick and mortar locations, and in-person communication are common touch points, much of your customers’ DCX will be run through your website. It needs to be intuitive to navigate. Beyond that, it needs to look good. When creating digital experiences, remember: no one wants to stare at a garish screen while trying to get their questions answered.
The more people like to use your website, the more you can use it to drive repeat business and get valuable data and customer feedback.
Consistency
No matter how your customers approach you, they should get consistently high quality service. It does not matter if they call or text or chat through your website. They deserve the best you have to offer every time.
One way to ensure that consistency is to make sure every touch point they access utilizes the same information to serve them. And that information should be updated across your system as soon as a change is made, so the customer doesn’t need to repeat themself over and over.
Use Data Wisely
Every time a customer interacts with you, you are collecting data. Leveraging that data is extremely important to creating the best possible DCX.
That data can be used to time relevant communications or help your team upsell a customer based on what the data shows is important to them.
Keep Good Company
Your partnerships also reflect your values. As a customer, is your organization working with customer-focused partners? When you do business with someone new, do they help you in your goal to better serve your client base?
When you work with TEAM IM, the answer to those questions is yes. TEAM IM is a leader in the world of process automation, AI, and machine learning, but always makes sure to put human ingenuity and understanding front and center.
Additionally, our content management services will help you ensure that your customers always speak to people with up-to-date information no matter what touch point they use to contact you. We help you migrate to the cloud safely and securely to give your customers the best prepared service possible.
Beyond that, we practice what we preach. Our own customer service blends AI and human interaction to be sure that you can answer simple questions quickly and get immediate, 24-7 help on more complex issues.
A Balanced Approach
With your focus on customers, optimized man/machine interaction, sublime design, consistent data access, and intelligent partnerships, your business will be a customer’s dream. And isn’t that what you want?
In the end, it’s not about humanizing digital interaction. The goal is to predict the customer’s needs so that they can get to a human when they need it before they get frustrated. And with TEAM IM as your partner, you can accomplish that goal.
Between content management, application design, and process automation services, TEAM IM can put your organization in a position to give customers the personalized service they crave without sacrificing efficiency.
The time is right to make your customer service shine. Contact TEAM IM and see how your company can improve your digital customer experience by humanizing technology today.
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