In 2017, the digital age of online reviews and social media means that customer scrutiny can make or break your business. Vanilla Plus Telecoms IT references a Gartner report that claims enterprise clients very regularly express dissatisfaction with the audio and video-conferencing functionalities of online chat platforms. Similarly, if you don't have a dedicated communications channel for customers to talk to you about any issues they had with their experience, your business could fast develop a damaging reputation.
Enterprise clients regularly express dissatisfaction with the capabilities of video-conferencing functionalities of platforms like Skype.
Unified communications (UC) represents an excellent solution to this problem. In integrating your communications devices together into one unified system, you give your business the benefit of being able to talk directly and instantly to clients. Here are just four of the ways unified communications improves the customer experience.
1. More accurate answers, more quickly
Answering if UC can help answer customer questions more efficiently and accurately comes down to how you improve the internal communications in your business. If someone contacts your business with a specific query, an internal UC system ensures that your helpline representative can locate someone who can answer their question seamlessly.
This way, you don't need to place anyone on hold, and clients can have their questions answered by an expert. This will show your staff know what they're talking about and care about problem solving.
Any customers who contact your business should be able to talk to someone who can help them straight away.
2. Availability anytime, anywhere
A UC system is great for companies that operate globally or across several time zones. With international customers contacting you at anytime, a UC system will be able to record and gather all emails, messages and missed calls into one location and transmit this data to one of your branches that is still in business hours. Your clients will appreciate the quick responses, and this also means any issues they may have can be addressed immediately before a more permanent review or complaint is made publicly accessible.
3. Create customer profiles
A UC system helps you better understand what any given person contacting your business may want. If you have detailed records of a clients past interactions with your organisation, a UC system enables a customer service agent to find someone who can match the caller profile with your logged details. Using information like past purchasing history and previous contact with your business can help your service agent provide a more positive experience.
This enables you to more effectively answer questions or link clients to an in-house product or service that can help swing their decision on whether or not to engage your business.
Giving your customer service agents client data in real-time can help them best address the problem at hand.
4. Strengthening relationships
Using the collaborative conferencing and messaging features of a UC system, you can engage clients in an online audio or video meeting to provide a more natural customer service experience. You can even use integrated collaboration tools - this means you can walk your consumers through any problems they have step by step. Livestreaming from your business to an online or social media platform is another option offered by UC - this way, customers can follow what you're doing in real-time, and address their issues with your business themselves.
This approach makes businesses more hospitable. It will also help position you as an organisation always thinking about what their regular patrons want. This will lead to happy and hopefully repeat clients!
As you can see, UC systems are designed to boost productivity, communication and improve your customers' experience. At Fonality, we have a number of UC solutions that can help increase satisfaction and engagement with your business - so reach out to us today for more information.