Supported by Zendesk
Summary
Customer support is becoming an ever-more complex operation. The days of just answering queries over the phone have gone. Today, customers expect to be able to change orders, receive refunds and have their complaints heard, all in one conversation and over the channel of their choice. Maintaining control and oversight is important, not only to control costs, but also to maximise the cross-sell–upsell opportunities. Customer service isn’t just a cost centre, it can drive commercial returns.
The plethora of communications channels available to our customers is making customer service ever-more complex and, arguably, democratic. Social media conversations provide customers with a platform, and, potentially for the brand, ambassadors.
Getting these conversations wrong can be a very public failure, while getting them right can have the same power to delight and exceed expectation. As transactions can increasingly be carried out across these channels, merchants need to be able to defer decision-making to the point person in the conversation. Speed is of the essence; positivity can benefit the brand and customer; it’s a brave new future.
This report looks at how expectations around customer service are evolving, and what retailers can do about it.
This report is supported by Zendesk.
The best customer experiences are built with Zendesk. Their customer service and engagement products are powerful and flexible, and scale to meet the needs of any business. Zendesk serves businesses across hundreds of industries, with more than 145,000 paid customer accounts offering service and support in over 30 languages. Zendesk is headquartered in San Francisco, and operates worldwide with 17 offices in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America.