6 Tips to Deliver Efficient, Personalized Customer Support
Millennial and Generation Z consumers hold enormous influence and spending power in today’s market. A key to delivering the experiences these consumers are looking for is to create a modern customer support operation that leverages the latest technologies, writes Anand Janefalkar, chief executive officer, UJET.
Planning and preparing for millennial and Generation Z consumers is no longer something that organizations can ignore. These demographics already have enormous influence and spending power, and this will only increase in the years to come. Companies that fail to gain their loyalty and trust risk becoming irrelevant quickly.
One of the most important ways to provide the experiences these consumers are looking for is through outstanding customer support, including providing a level of personalization that makes them feel known and appreciated. By deploying the right customer support technologies and processes, organizations can put themselves in a position to succeed with these valuable customers.
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Millennial and Generation Z consumers will soon be the primary demographics in terms of buying power. Professional services and consulting firm, Accenture noted in a 2019 report that Millennial consumers spend $600 billion in the United States each year. Furthermore, performance management company, Nielsen Holdings reported that Millennials are influencing more than $1 trillion in total consumer spending.
6 Ways to Deliver a Personalized Customer Support Experience
Companies in all industries need to make it a priority to attract and hold onto these influential buyers by delivering a personalized customer support experience every time they reach out for help, to order product updates, or for any other reason. They need to align their customer support with these groups’ preferred channels.
Gaining and retaining the loyalty of Millennials and Generation Z consumers can certainly be a challenge. But there are six key ways companies can gain an edge with these consumers, all with the goal of providing them with a modern and personalized customer support experience.
1. Optimize support for smartphone users
Millennials and Gen Zers are heavy users of mobile devices such as smartphones. They spend a lot of time on these devices, downloading apps, viewing streaming video, interacting on social media, etc.
It is more critical than ever that companies provide a seamless and effortless support experience for these mobile users. The benefits of this approach include faster and more streamlined information-sharing between customers and agents; more conversational customer service interactions; and faster response and resolution times.
2. Offer messaging support that is instant and mobile
Millennial and Generation Z consumers prefer to communicate through messaging, rarely making phone calls unless it’s for urgent matters. Businesses need to make sure that their contact center teams are equipped with the right technology tools to route and prioritize messaging effectively, so that all customers can receive prompt attention.
A recent article from the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) notes that, meeting this expectation requires a dynamic customer service combination of 24-hour availability via mobile chat and/or Facebook Messenger, digital chat agents, and giving front-line agents the authority and the requisite skills and supporting technologies to resolve issues quickly.
3. Provide self-service options for easy-to-resolve issues
In a recent Zendesk survey, nearly three quarters of Generation Z respondents (72%) and more than half of Millennial respondents (52%) said their search for support begins in a company’s help center.
Separate research from The Center for Generational Kinetics found that 69% of Millennials feel a sense of satisfaction with themselves and the brand they are interacting with when they are able to resolve an issue on their own without the need to speak with customer service.
As part of a self-service strategy, companies should consider directing customers to frequently asked questions tied to the Web knowledge base, so they can find potential solutions to their issues before they even need to initiate a chat session with an agent. In addition to enabling customers to solve problems on their own, this frees up contact center agents to focus their time on resolving more complex and urgent requests.
4. Offer fast response and resolution to issues
Customers in general do not like waiting to get an issue resolved, and Millennials and Generation Z consumers are no exception. Prompt service can be a big factor in whether consumers want to do more business with a company.
A 2018 online survey of 1,044 U.S. consumers by Dimensional Research, commissioned by Zendesk, showed that nearly two thirds (65%) of the respondents said they expect customer service to be faster than it was five years ago, and 89% said a quick response to an initial inquiry is important when deciding which company to buy from.
The last thing a company wants to do is keep these high-value customers waiting on the line or stuck in a chat waiting for an agent to respond. Optimizing customer support for smartphone users, providing text support, and offering self-service options can all help to shorten wait times.
It’s also important to know when contact center teams are likely to experience a high volume of customer service requests, in order to make sure they are ready to route and prioritize calls appropriately.
5. Optimize for connectivity on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram
More customer service interactions are happening over social networks, and many Generation Z consumers and Millennials use social media to communicate with companies compared with previous generations. In addition, Millennial and Gen Z consumers are more likely to share bad experiences they’ve had with companies on social media than positive ones.
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Being responsive via social media channels presents a big opportunity for businesses. They can interact with Millennial and Generation Z customers in real time right where they want to communicate, which can help earn brand loyalty.
6. Personalize the experience
Technology plays a central role in making this happen.
For example, customer support agents should have immediate access to known customer information, such as names, recent purchases, and previous issues, when a call or chat begins. A company’s call center platform should be integrated with its customer relationship management (CRM) system to make that data available to agents as soon as they need it.
By deploying modern technology in the call center and moving away from outmoded, siloed tools and out-of-date data, businesses can streamline workflows and eliminate redundant tasks that prevent agents from delivering efficient, personalized support for all customers.
