When a friend asks you to recommend a shopping app, would you suggest the one whose customer service just gave you a free return, or the one you always have issues getting a refund with? Easy choice. Customers will walk away easily after one bad service experience. But they will return with friends if they get more than they ask for. 

Customer service is even more important in the digital age when people have access to almost every kind of product and service on their smartphones at their fingertips. People expect reaching out to services to be as easy as chatting with their friends on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. They tweet about their service experience – both good and bad – without giving you a heads up. They can easily switch brands if you cannot provide personalized service. As a company, you need to make sure customers are happy at every touchpoint of the service.

So how can you get the job done? Having an intelligent customer service strategy that’s data-driven, personalized, and automated is the key.

Connect with Customers through Omni-Channel Service and Intelligence

People should be able to find your service wherever they need to, whether it’s via social media channels, in-apps messaging, emails, or live chat. Building your service channels is not just about opening an account on every social media out there. It’s about solving real problems for your customers through these channels, and keeping your service consistent and intelligent across every interaction. Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer Research shows 68% of consumers say it’s absolutely critical or very important for customer service agents to know their service history, so they don’t have to spend time explaining it to them. Customers expect agents to read their complaints on Twitter before they ask questions in the service line. To deliver that, you need a robust customer service platform powered with real-time business intelligence.

It’s easier said than done. To help you put an intelligent customer service in place, recently we put together a Slideshare to walk you through some details.  

Turn Customer Service into New Marketing through Smart Analytics

A high-performance customer service team does not just solve people’s complaints. It also works hand in hand with marketing and sales to identify customers’ pain points. Intelligent customer service empowers you to anticipate customers’ needs before people reach out. With smart analytics, every conversation with your customer is a chance to provide targeted marketing messages. Account questions can be an opportunity to remind customers about their initial decision to buy or subscribe. Refund requests can be turned into a transfer to another product that better suits their needs. It’s not all about increasing the sales number. It’s about going that extra mile to make sure every customer walks away happily.

Improve Customer Service with Timely, Data-Driven Insights

Intelligent customer service promises you timely, data-driven insights at all times. It helps to get every level of the team on the same page to uncover trending issues, track progress against KPIs and draft plans for the next phase. Agents can share case status with managers in real time, which increases productivity of the entire team. Business intelligence in customer service can also provide actionable insights for tasks of other teams such as sales and marketing. No data scientist or business analyst needed. An intelligent customer service platform makes these all possible.  

Want to know more about how to make your customer service conversations more intelligent? Check out our free e-book to bring your customer service to the next level.