For many companies, an automated phone system, such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR), is the first and most critical interaction your customers will have with your customer experience journey. It’s therefore an important time for your business to stand out by delivering superior customer service that results in a competitive advantage. Improving the design of your automated solutions can increase system efficiency, agent productivity, call center cost-effectiveness, and overall customer satisfaction.
Here are 4 tips that will help ensure your automated customer service solutions are designed to add value to your business and improve the customer experience
Make the interaction all about the caller
A customer experience journey should be designed with the caller in mind – this means being respectful of the customer’s time by making every interaction as brief, simple and straightforward as possible. Show the caller you care deeply about them by making their time a priority
Be human
Your caller is most likely reaching out to customer service as a result of frustration, so put them at ease by making interactions natural, conversational, and as human-like as possible. Read dialog out loud to make sure it sounds like something a person would say, and make sure it sounds friendly.
Never stop asking why
Your customer journey design should be an ongoing, continuous process. Challenge assumptions to look for ways to improve your system, and avoid falling into the trap of doing something simply because “it’s always been done this way”.
Align your customer experience with your overall business goals
Your automated customer service solution can have a huge impact on your overall company costs and success. In my experience, the organizations that assemble strong internal customer experience teams that are committed to continual process improvement achieve the best results.
When done right, good customer experience design increases customer satisfaction, which leads to improved customer loyalty. So getting your customer interaction design right can go a long way to helping you meet your overall business goals. To read more tips on best practices for customer interaction design, visit the Interactions Resource Library.
