Your customers’ expectations around service continue to evolve as different channels of communication become more engrained in their lives. They adopt new technologies, looking for ways to get things done with less effort and a better experience. Resolving their issues quickly keeps your customers satisfied. Earning their loyalty, though, requires a more personalized approach. In fact, 52% of consumers/65% of business buyers are likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize their communications to them.

Companies that stand out are delivering more than a transactional service experience. They realize their customers don’t just care about fixing their issue, but also how easy and enjoyable the experience was. Ideally, your customer’s interaction with your company should fit seamlessly into the way they prefer to communicate.

Moving towards conversational service allows your customers to interact with your company the same way they do with their friends. With SMS and messaging apps, your service agents and customers can resolve concerns quickly and easily with a more natural communication style.

Become more conversational to gain these four benefits and improve your customer service:

1. Real Time, Right Place Availability: Give customers access to your service reps on the platforms they use most frequently. Messaging apps like SMS and Facebook messenger are great for sending notifications, but your communication shouldn’t end there. Let the conversation continue and have agents available to instantly answer customer questions right where things left off. And don’t be afraid to use an emoji or two if that’s your company’s style. 😄  

2. Better Rapport with Customers: Use conversational intelligence to deliver a more positive experience. For example, this intelligence, combined with machine learning, can help agents by analyzing a caller’s word choice to uncover behavioral signals and recommend the next best thing for an agent to say.

3. Empowered Agents with Higher Productivity: With chat and text conversations taking place in one console, agents can easily handle multiple conversations at the same time. Bots can also be integrated to gather basic customer info and even respond to simple FAQs. This allows agents to focus on solving more complex customer inquiries, which leads to more meaningful customer relationships.

4. More Engaged Community: Empower customers with an effectively curated knowledge base and a platform to chat with other users who can share advice. Reward active community members and let them acknowledge and thank each other for their contributions.

Conversational service leads the way toward a better service experience for your customers. Stay ahead of their expectations and deliver proactive service across the channels they use most frequently.

Learn more about how high-performing service teams anticipate customer needs and deliver personalized service in our second annual “State of Service” report.