See it, solve it, fix it: Improving customer service

A customer logs on to your website when all of a sudden, the site gets stuck. He is in the middle of a transaction, and needs the product as soon as possible. The first instinct is to call the customer service desk, but they have no understanding of what just happened or how to fix it. The representative is, unfortunately, just as stuck as you are.

This is a worst-case scenario for a company, when they can’t help a customer resolve a situation instantaneously. Customers expect to be able to access a company’s products and services with a seamless website or mobile app experience, optimised for convenience and speed. According to Kissmetrics.com, over half of all online users will bounce from a site once they get frustrated or have a negative experience on their website (including an overlong loading time), meaning a lot of potentially lost revenue. How your website performs will determine how successful your business is, which will directly impact your bottom line.

When people call your company with a technical issue, they don’t want to wait for you to track down the one person who can handle the issue and have to recreate the scenario themselves. They want you to be prompt, effective, and efficient, in order to demonstrate that you care about the needs of your customers and being the company that they rely on.

There are three things your company needs to know how to do in order to provide the best customer service possible:

• Objectively see the website from the customer’s point of view
• Listen to what is not being said, because chances are customers aren’t telling you everything.
• Turn problem-solving into a collaborative effort for the best chances of success.

Improving customer service

If you want to improve your customer’s experience, you have to be able to see your online presence much more objectively. There are two parts to improving customer service: being able to react to the situation as it is happening and being able to understand what caused the error in the first place so that it does not happen again.

Customer service should be a focal point for many companies, as the success of many transactions can depend on the relevant interactions. A 2011 study by American Express found that 78% of consumers did not complete a process or transaction due to poor customer service. That number is incredibly significant when you take into account how many transactions or conversions take place online on a daily basis. If your company is not prepared for handling something that might inadvertently go wrong, that potential relationship will turn into another negative statistic against your company.

The second part of the process is the reflection of the error, and to be prepared to fix it quicker if it happens again. This occurs in two parts: the technical side of what needs to be corrected, and the comprehension of the other members of the staff so that they can identify the issue, as well. One beauty of this system is it increases the communication between the different departments and therefore provides more information to everyone involved.

The silent majority

The most important part of online and mobile transactions is humanizing the process. It can be hard to remember that behind the swipes and clicks is an actual person. While a conversion or sale might be your goal, that person is your target. If you do wrong by them in any way, technical, or otherwise, you will lose their business.

However, while a majority of customers make experience some type of error on your website, only 4% of them are likely to report it, comments Ruby Newell-Legler in her article on “Understanding Customers”. This means you may not be getting the full picture of your website, and this is where that objectivity comes into play. Even if your company is only hearing from 4% of its users, it most likely means a larger amount of people are experiencing the same problem. Never discount the feedback of the user experience; chances are there is more to learn behind what they are telling you.

The right tools for the job

One way to get your company on the right track faster is by introducing website session replay. Tools like this allow any member of your company to access a user’s experience. Within three seconds of a user’s journey on your website or mobile app, your company will have access to a wealth of data that will help you determine what halted their process, whether it was technical, personal, or layout-related.

When the technical team has a visual image of what happens, discrepancies are easier to fix. It is easier to identify the problem and where it occurred, and also to separate whether it was a one-time occurrence or a recurring issue. The sooner that is identified and corrected, the better.

Being able to trace the digital customer journey is more important than one might think. Not only does it reveal any technical issues, but it demonstrates any layout flaws, or concerns over website design. This allows all of these problems to get corrected quicker, and also brings forth more inter-departmental communication. The best part about this new technology is that it encourages a quicker, collaborative approach to getting the error resolved. When your team works together to solve problems, you create better synergy within your company that shows through to your final product.

How Glassbox can help

Glassbox’s website session replay tools, as well as its other customer experience analytics solutions, can give your company a better insight into how well your software is serving your site’s visitors. One of the features that Glassbox prides itself on is taking the information that is being input into the site or app, relaying it as concrete data, and allowing your staff to recognize what needs to be done in order to improve the overall website experience. Calling customer service is an experience that is dreaded by most, but with Glassbox’s session replay tools, it no longer will be. Website discrepancies will become a thing of the past, as will phone conversations with disgruntled customers. When you implement Glassbox’s suite of digital customer service optimization tools, you are guaranteed an increase in customer satisfaction.