Dynamic Enterprise Feature Editorial

How Cross Channel Conversations Create Customer Loyalty and Improve Satisfaction

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

In today’s economy, if you only have one channel through which to communicate with your customers, you are missing key opportunities to deliver the experience they want that will build the loyalty you need. Did you know you can drive considerable satisfaction simply by offering multiple ways for customers to interact with your company?

The reason multi-channel and cross channel conversations work is that customers want to be engaged where they are, not where you want them to be. Consumers are readily using e-mail, chat and text messaging to interact with friends and family. They want to be able to leverage the same platforms to communicate with you. In doing so, you are delivering an experience the consumer will view as convenient, competent, personalized and proactive. 

Consumers also routinely use the Internet to conduct research, resolve issues and share their opinions regarding interactions with your company on social networking platforms. The last thing you want to see is a current customer posting their frustration on every social networking platform. What you can do, however, is capture what customers are saying about you and use that information as the wealth of knowledge that it is to design your solutions and services to meet the demands of your customers. This is not to say that this won’t be a challenge for you. 

After all, traditionally speaking, customer service and sales were often fragmented into silos and then scattered throughout various functional departments and lines of business. This provided no visibility into previous customer interactions across different channels. As a result, the quality of customer service delivery is often inconsistent. 

When you have the tools you need to view interactions across channels, the experience for the customer is seamless and you help to reduce churn. Cross-channel communications deliver a consistent experience for the customer – especially as they might be moving from voice channels to non-voice channels. Customers do not want to have to repeat information or call back on an issue they thought was resolved. When this happens, you inadvertently communicate to them that you don’t care about their business.

 When you integrate cross-channel conversations, you create a single conversation over time and across all channels to more effectively engage your customers. This also enables you to meet the demands of growth and customer satisfaction to achieve loyalty over time. When you integrate all communications into a single flow and use the same business logic to route interactions to the right agent, you can effectively reach out to customers to build the loyalty you need through the satisfaction that customers demand.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Erin Harrison