Digital Customer Service
Level up your customer experience and improve agent performance while increasing customer satisfaction and retaining customers.
With the wealth of technology at our fingertips today, every type of organization must transform its customer service operations to align with constant changes. Adopting digital customer service software is a great way to do this.
With ever-growing customer expectations, businesses must ensure that they’re meeting consumer demands with exceptional service at each and every stage of the customer journey.
Not doing so risks your competitors stealing your existing or potential customers.
What is digital customer service?
Digital customer service (DCS) is the act of providing customer support via channels like social media, email, video chat, artificial intelligence and automation solutions (e.g., chatbots), and more.
It involves the use of digital customer service tools to support customers through one or a combination of these channels. All with the aim of enriching customer interactions and improving the overall digital customer experience.
Why digitize customer experiences?
Consumers are no longer interacting solely through traditional communication methods. Instead, they’re turning to mobile apps and web-based communications to interact with the people in their lives.
Because of this, it’s important that any business that wants to succeed adopts a digital customer service solution, or they risk being left in the dust.
Why your business needs digital transformation
In this age of digital transformation, customers expect more of businesses and customer service organizations. They expect them to provide real-time, omnichannel support strategies that are personalized, efficient, and optimized to improve customer satisfaction levels.
Customers are increasingly only satisfied when businesses automate or digitize their customer service journeys completely to align with how they’re already communicating in a constantly connected world.
That’s where digital customer service solutions come in. They provide a wealth of benefits that are hard for businesses to ignore.
Benefits of digital customer service channels
The benefits of digital-first customer service range from providing a more convenient service experience for customers to boosting sales and improving customer loyalty and satisfaction.
In fact, DCS benefits businesses and customers in a variety of ways. Successful DCS can:
- Increase customer satisfaction levels and employee experiences by reducing customer effort and addressing CX pain points in real time.
- Empower agents with the service solutions, automation tools, and data they need to effectively resolve customer queries.
- Improve conversions by reimagining the traditional call center and providing customers with multichannel—or better still, omnichannel—support, and both on-screen and off-screen guidance.
- Reduce costs by streamlining call center operations, increasing human agent productivity, and decreasing time spent on individual requests.
Digital customer service best practices
When implementing a digital customer service platform, there are some things you need to consider to get the most out of your digital customer service strategy:
- Provide thorough staff training: First things first, it’s vital that you provide staff with comprehensive training that enables them to use your organization’s digital customer service channels to the best of their ability. After all, there’s no point in purchasing top-notch software with all the bells and whistles if nobody knows how to use it properly. Once staff members are certain about how to use all the features of the platform, they’ll be able to provide the best possible customer service as quickly as possible. Then, as many customers as possible will come away satisfied and be more likely to remain loyal.
- Optimize for cell phones: Let’s face it, how often do you use a PC or laptop to shop online? Probably not very often. And you’re not alone. According to Statista, in the first few months of 2024, “smartphones constituted around 77 percent of retail site traffic globally, responsible for generating two-thirds of online shopping orders.” So, after your customers have used their cell phone to buy from you, make sure that it’s as easy as possible for them to use the same device to access your digital customer service channels if necessary.
- Use automated chatbots to answer simple queries: Make the most of software that offers automated chatbots to give quick answers to simple questions. By doing this, you’ll be freeing up your agents so they can deal with more complex queries. If a customer interacts with a chatbot first and then it becomes apparent that it can’t quite solve their query, ensure that the customer is smoothly and politely transferred to a human agent. It’s also important to use intelligent routing so that customers are only transferred to agents who have the appropriate skills and experience to deal with their specific query
- Provide personalization: When your customers do have complex queries that need to be answered by a member of staff, it’s important to make them feel like an individual. So forget your “Dear Sir” or “Dear Ma’am.” Instead, opt for using each customer’s own name to offer that human touch.
- Improve continuously: Don’t stop once you’ve chosen the digital service channels that your organization will use and you’ve trained your staff on them. Use customer feedback to make any necessary changes to keep your customers coming back again and again. Maybe you’ve read online reviews that highlight that some of your customers aren’t satisfied with certain aspects of your digital customer service. Use this feedback to make the improvements that your customers want to see before you lose them to your competitors. It’s also important to ensure that your staff are kept up to date with the latest updates to the platform that your company uses to provide customer service.
- Protect customer data: Last but not least, ensure that your customers’ data remains secure at all times by implementing robust security measures. After all, people will be reluctant to share their personal data with you if there’s any hint that their confidential information will end up in the wrong hands.
How digital-first customer service solutions improve customer satisfaction
So, after following these best practices, how exactly can digital-first customer service solutions increase customer satisfaction?
By incorporating DCS solutions into business strategies, organizations can increase satisfaction rates among customers by:
- Streamlining support operations over multiple channels
- Saving time for customers and support agents—i.e., through improved routing and other features matched to customers' needs
- Enhancing convenience for customers
- Providing details about customer pain points using data analysis and reports
How can digital customer service be improved?
DCS is continuously evolving along with innovations in technology and shifts in consumer trends.
Businesses should evaluate their DCS strategies on an ongoing basis to provide a consistent CX. It’s important to consider:
- Adding value to self-service assets (e.g., chatbots or pop-up live chat)
- Regularly checking in with customers and using their feedback to inform support strategies
- Keeping up with trends in AI development
- Utilizing phone support tools such as call whisper, call blending, campaign management tools, and list management
What does the RingCentral digital customer service solution have to offer?
With RingCX, you’ll discover an array of features designed to supercharge your call center operations. The easy-to-deploy software, with its intuitive interface, provides all the digital channels your agents need on one pane of glass.
Your agents will benefit from automated intelligence, easy-to-navigate digital channels, and smart virtual agents that can answer more basic questions—freeing up their time for more complex queries.
Another feature that bolsters your agents’ productivity is the ability to seamlessly integrate RingCX with over 300 tools, including trusted CRMs like Salesforce and Zendesk.
Live chat, meanwhile, offers 24/7 support for customers and increases satisfaction rates by providing efficient support in real time.
RingCentral isn’t only a game changer for agents and customers, though. Let’s not forget how it can benefit you, too.
The platform enables you to access crucial data that provides insight into how your contact center is performing, allowing you to make informed decisions about any improvements that need to be made.
You’ll have access to things such as trending topics and customer sentiment, keeping you in the loop regarding your customers’ thoughts on your products and services—making it a future-proof solution that helps you adapt to changing customer demands.
Ready to elevate your agent experience? Then why not find out more about how our platform can set your contact center up for success? From an easy-to-use interface and powerful insights, to integrations with leading CRMs and other business tools, our solution is sure to transform your contact center management.
See how easy it is to get started with our AI-powered contact center
