Choosing the Best Customer Care Technology

A colour wheel featuring the red section on consumers and users

Technology is constantly changing, but while consumers are quick to adopt the latest gadgets, platforms, products and services, many established brands aren’t so quick to keep up.

As consumers adapt to technology changes, they also expect businesses to do the same. And if they don’t, those businesses do not go unnoticed by consumers.

For instance, in 2007 Twitter became a mainstream app, but brands were slow to get on board, many of them waiting another two years before they showed up and delivered – much to the dismay of consumers.

A more current example is with messaging. In 2015, apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and iMessage became more popular than social media, becoming the primary activity on smartphones. Today, messaging is consumers’ preferred method of communication, but so many brands have failed to take note of this and still rely on telephone as their primary method of customer support!

It’s critical to keep up with changes in consumer demand and adapt to the growing demand for online customer care.

Read on to discover how to find the best customer care technology for your business:

Know your weaknesses

The first step is recognising where your weaknesses lie when it comes to your customer service. If you don’t have access to analytics, search for online reviews and keep a close eye on your social media activity to detect which areas need improving upon.

An empty office featuring row upon row of PCs, each with a set of headphones

Determine your goals

What does ‘customer service success’ mean to you? Do you want to improve your customer service response time? Or stop shoppers from abandoning their carts before checkout? By determining your goals in advance this will help to direct and narrow down your search for the best customer care technology.

Stick to mobile-first

Instead of sending emails to people’s already overcrowded inboxes, why not adopt new approaches such as in-app messaging and real-time messaging via Facebook? Consumers are heavily connected to their devices and these apps are more than likely sitting on their home screens, so capitalise on this by connecting directly with your customers via their preferred communication channels.

Run it by your team

Involve your team in the decision-making process! Encourage them to test it out and also look into the future to determine if this technology will stay relevant with the passing of time. For instance, as voice search transforms the digital market and video becomes more popular, you need to ensure that you’re choosing a technology that makes the most sense for your business and enables you to foster brand engagement with your customers, not just now but in the long run too.

Encourage user adoption

Finally, you need to do whatever it takes to get your employees excited about the new technology and get them fully onboarded, whether via training sessions or simple introductory emails. Once the new tech is successfully implemented, get your team to write testimonials and create case studies to demonstrate the positive impact this new technology has had.