Since 2020 and the pandemic first hit, almost every organisation from every industry has had to go from working in physical spaces to working remotely. The massive transition to a remote workforce during the pandemic was out of the need to maintain operations and keep business going.
However, a Gartner survey of company leaders found that 80% have the plan to allow employees to work remotely part of the time going forward, and 47% express the willingness to go full work-from-home. With regards to implementing remote work as a strategy, 78% of CEOs agree, in a PwC survey, that remote workforce and collaboration as the new form of work are here to stay.
The above trends and mindset apply to the field of customer service (as well as any other departments and functions), as customer experience is more important than ever. However, is your team or organisation well-prepared for the transition to a remote workforce? Here are ten customer service mistakes to avoid in shifting to a remote workforce. We will be exploring this topic from three different angles:
Source: RingCentral
Before we talk about the many things that customer service teams need to pay attention to when managing a remote workforce, the number one criteria is having the necessary equipment and tools to actually allow agents to provide services remotely. To make remote service work (this applies to other types of remote work as well), you would need at least the following items for each agent:
Having a reliable, easy-to-use, and scalable communication platform for your service teams is crucial in every aspect, as failure to keep customers happy will directly impact the relationship you have with your customers, which in turn could hurt your brand in unexpected ways.
For organisations that provide customer service teams with mobile devices to enhance mobility and enable quicker access to resources, it’s important to monitor and manage them well.
That’s why in addition to the traditional communication software, mobile device management is also vital to monitor and provide support for your own team. When the number of devices grows, the need to organise, push updates, and remotely support them efficiently quickly becomes a necessity for maximising your investment for the remote workforce.
If your team or organisation is not focused on omnichannel support, now is the time to adapt. PWC, in their 2020 report, found that companies investing in omnichannel support have jumped from 20% to 80%. In today’s business and commerce landscape, customers, whether it is consumer or commercial, expect your customer service to be present at all times.
The common omnichannel integration and cross-platform support avenues include email, phone, SMS, live chat, and social media. Here are four benefits of having omnichannel support:
According to Salesforce research, the average consumer says they use ten different channels to communicate with companies. When comparing the channels that organisations have and the channels that consumers prefer to use, we can see that there are still big gaps for channels like mobile apps and voice-activated services:
Source: Salesforce Research
In addition to the communication aspect of omnichannel support, the ability to support multi-platform – another aspect of omnichannel – is also becoming an integral part of customer service, especially when it comes to supporting mobile apps or mobile customers.
When customers need guidance or tutorial on a mobile device, your customer service team needs to be able to walk them through the procedures of navigating an app or service directly. This usually includes being able to see the device screen, marking the screen or performing gestures to show directions, as well as having voice chat so the agent can communicate and see the screen in action simultaneously.
Source: RingCentral
Even before the pandemic, customer service demand has become the focal point for both sellers and buyers. As we go full-blown virtual, the economic, health, and societal crises are pushing this trend even further. Companies need to navigate the influx of demands, the complexity of omnichannel, and the difficulty educating service agents, while keeping the customers happy.
One thing that every customer service team should avoid is neglecting the power of self-service support in the form of AI, automation, and chatbots.
In addition to getting the necessary technologies and tools, having access to relevant customer information and history with your brand is one of the cores of having a good customer experience.
Customers today expect an agent via any touchpoint to be able to instantly pull out his or her history so that whatever issue or questions can be answered in a timely fashion. By now you should start to see that having just omnichannel availability is not enough; you also need to enable your agents to have access to a central database.
To provide quick and easy access to customer service, one of the most important things every customer service team should look at is the ability to collaborate, especially in a remote workforce environment.
According to Accenture, 95% of collaboration leaders agree that their company is aligned around shared customer experience. Not having shared knowledge and information of customers will be detrimental to the customer experience. Here are some of the best practices to help you improve communication and collaboration:
Your customer service teams need to be well prepared to deal with all kinds of challenges. According to Salesforce Research, over 70% of service decision-makers agree that investment in training the team is a high priority, while high performers, too, think that training is integral to helping them succeed.
Source: Salesforce Research (state of service), 2019
For those who are starting out or who are still in the process of optimising the training for your remote workforce, here is a list of things to keep in mind and avoid:
When managing a customer service remote workforce, it’s tempting to just focus on the traditional performance metrics, such as tickets closed, time spent on each session, the number of customers served, etc.
While these conventional metrics are still important when evaluating the performance of each service agent, it might be time to shift some of the emphasis over to measuring the overall customer experience. There are some metrics that have been on the scene for quite some time now, but deserve to get another look:
The workforce may be remote and that could give your team a false impression that it’s easier to do customer service during a turbulent time in a virtual setting. Customer expectations are higher than ever precisely because things are always changing and emotions are volatile.
Given how easily anyone can write a review on different review sites, platforms, or social media, customer service becomes one of the most direct touchpoints that trigger negative reviews. If you are a small company, your customer service teams play a big role in responding to customer reviews, which is an important channel nowadays.
Source: BusinessWire
Today’s consumers (both personal and commercial) have a high expectation of receiving personalised services and see this as a criteria to choose between brands. Even in today’s remote and virtual environment, the expectations won’t be any less.
Personalisation can come in different forms, such as having the right customer information when making contact or tailoring the responses based on different needs. According to a report from KPMG, personalisation has become the strongest pillar in driving customer loyalty in 19 of 27 markets surveyed.
If you are looking for personalisation tactics and to improve customer satisfaction, here are some tips for you:
Finally, with all the technologies, tools, directions, and training in place, the last thing that all the customer service teams need to continuously remind everyone of is the fact that providing support remotely is going to be the norm going forward.
This means that the old ways of doing things will eventually get fazed out. Having the mindset that aligns with the transformation will help organisations to maintain operational excellence and really take advantage of the benefits of running a remote support workforce. Here are some of the critical mindset tips for making the transformation as seamless as possible:
Managing a remote workforce within your customer service team doesn’t have to be a hassle. With the right technology, professional knowledge, and an open-minded mindset, you are enabling your customer service agents to continue providing satisfying customer support while staying productive at the same time.
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