Delivering the best customer experience is tricky – even with the most innovative tracking tools and competitive customer relationship management (CRM) software in place. In order for businesses to excel in the digital space and craft extraordinary customer experiences, they need to be consistent. Every touchpoint in your business needs to be measured and driven by metrics, insights, and behavior.

Business owners need to put customers at the heart of their organization. Forget customer contact centers and start treating your servicing department as a customer engagement center. With unlimited access to technology, there’s no excuse for your brand to not be creating a more compelling customer experience online, offline, and in real-time. Facebook and WhatsApp have updated their business features, allowing businesses to text their customers in real-time. As a result of the general love for texting over email and phone calls, these innovative brands have given customers the freedom to leave conversations and pick them up at a later stage.

Convenience is the new best customer experience

The best customer experiences are effortless. It’s the brands that rethink their business and customer relationship management (CRM) strategies around their customers’ needs and make it known how important they are to their business’ success. A poor customer experience is a business risk. Would you return to a company you’ve had a poor experience with? Not only does a negative customer experience damage your reputation, it significantly limits your business’ longevity and shrinks profits.

According to a recent study, “happy customers tell an average of 11 people about a positive experience and unhappy customers tell an average of 15 people about a poor experience.” It takes one agent to spark a positive experience for a customer and an entire team to deliver the best customer experience. This can also be reversed, taking one person and team to create a poor brand reputation. If that's the case, try to limit the need for customers to interact with agents by introducing a chatbot feature to your brand. Live chat, whether it’s on your website or in-app, will allow you to create the ultimate experience you want your customers to have without having to worry about a human jeopardizing your reputation.

Facetime is not always an option for customers with service agents, and besides, most customers don’t want to spend time with agents. They want any brand interaction to be as quick and easy as possible. Chatbots can offer your business just that allowing you to communicate with several customers at once.

Industry trends to consider in your customer service strategy

Customer success means understanding who your customers are, what they want and how they want it. You need to know how to communicate via your business’s digital touchpoints, on a variety of different channels. Here are a few CRM tips to help you improve your customer service strategy:

• Omnichannel for the win: According to a Smart Insights study, “83 percent of consumers state that the ability to move from one channel to another, such as moving from web chat to a live conversation, is desirable but only 50 percent of businesses support such cross-channel interactions.” In this case, omnichannel is the best option. Customers want to be able to communicate on a personal level where it’s convenient for them, therefore brands need to be wherever customers are. The latest trend is for brands to offer customers an in-app communication experience on tools such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Google RSC business messaging. The reason for this is that most customers already have these applications on their mobile so they don’t need to download several applications in order to ask a sales agent a question. If you pair these with a social CRM tool such as Clickatell’s Touch, you will be able to receive messages and monitor all the above conversations from one central place.

• Mobile for ultimate convenience: Most digital media time is spent on mobile. This is a good enough reason for companies to offer a customer experience that is optimized for mobile and fast-loading for their convenience. Not to mention, on-demand conversation when needed.

• Self-service is the way of the future: As you’ve learned, customers like to do things for themselves. The less human interaction the better, so it’s important to try and offer your customers a machine learning, self-service platform where they can go about their search or purchase on their own. Make customers know that you’re there if they need them by guiding customers in the right direction and offering them information that will add value to their lives.

Will your customer experience qualify for service excellence?

Today, customers have the power. They have the power to make decisions that could potentially affect your business in a good or bad way and they have the power to change your customer experience. If you want to offer your customers the best customer experience in the business, be sure to have a strong CRM strategy that supports omnichannel communication. Once you understand your customers, you will be able to use that knowledge to personalize your approach. To learn how to make every touchpoint flawless and deliver the best customer experience, read our recent article on the topic.