It is a fact that text is what generally moves the Internet. The text is the foundation of chats, emails, forums, and conversations on social networks. Today, almost every business offers chat capabilities on its website as well as an email to reach them too. The progress in artificial intelligence is leading companies to automate more and more tasks that were traditionally done by humans, even reaching customer service. Automation can generate great benefits and productivity for many businesses, however, for others, it can have a negative impact, since many of their customers will value human contact more than a conversation with a chatbot powered by AI.
59% of consumers consider that companies have lost the value of human interaction in customer service.
-PWC
This does not mean that you should never use chat, or consider a chatbot for your business; the essential thing is that you should not remove human contact from your customer service, you must combine it with the use of technology. Customers ought to know they will always have at least one channel that guarantees direct contact with a person. Chats are a good option, but they are not usually a one-to-one conversation. On average, one agent can be attending to 2 or 3 chats simultaneously, and more experienced agents with the right tools can get to 6; usually, these agents use response scripts that consumers have already learned to recognize.
Why should you talk more to your customers?
Calls are something that you must combine with your other contact channels such as chats and chatbots. A phone call is the most personal interaction that a customer can have with a virtual business, such as a B2B, SaaS or e-commerce. A voice call will help you get closer to your customers and let them know that real people are supporting them. Besides, a call in the right moment can close a deal quicker than a chat.
How to improve support for your customers and leads without getting tangled up
Technology helps us easily in this matter because VoIP systems like Toky can connect with different CRM and sales and support tools, allowing you to combine voice calls, chat and email effortlessly. Integrations will not only help you improve your productivity, but also reduce errors and mitigate the risk of information loss caused by keeping records manually.
At Toky, we combine email, chat, phone calls and our business software to offer a great customer experience. In our case, we make use of the following features:
- Live call button on your site: This shows up simultaneously with the chat option and allows your current and potential customers to call you with a click inside your site, without having to register or install additional software.
- Virtual phone numbers: Our virtual phone system allows you to easily offer phone numbers in the countries where you have the most presence and allow your customers call you at a local or toll-free number for free while your call center serves them in a centralized way, even with agents in different locations.
- Integration with Intercom: At Toky, we have two integrations with Intercom; one, allows you to call customers directly from Intercom with one click, in addition to other tasks such as the automatic synchronization of call events and contact data. The second integration, called Toky Instant Call, allows you to invite customers to call you without leaving the Intercom Messenger. This way, when the agent considers that it is more useful to talk than to keep writing, he simply inserts a button that the customer can click to call the agent directly within Intercom Messenger, and the agent answers using Toky.
- Integration with your CRM: This lowers the time the agents require to register a call in the customer's history since Toky automatically records inbound and outbound calls, SMS and even missed calls.
- Click to call in the CRM or integrated application: This integration allows you to call to your contacts without leaving your CRM, even from Intercom or any other software connected to Toky. An integration not only accelerates your calling process but also enables you to make it more fluid, using Toky within each tool without switching between tabs or browser windows.
The combination of chat and phone calls, in an integrated environment, will allow your agents to perform their call center tasks continuously without jumping between applications or manually recording anything, so they can take care of what really matters: The customer.
There are many other great features on Toky's virtual phone system that can help your business improve communication with its customers. Learn more
In conclusion, it is essential that your customers know, that behind the technology, the service or product that you offer, they will always be backed by a team of people. Your customers can not feel that bots and preset messages will always serve them, and you should try to keep a fluid support process that allows you to serve customers without having to jump from one application to another. Finally, I suggest you include phone calls in your support and sales processes. In addition to sending an email or a text message to your customers, pick up the phone or in Toky's case, call them with a single click. This kind of personal contact will not only improve the image of your business, but it will have a very positive effect on the customer's loyalty, and you may even see an increase in sales.
Improve your customer service offering by listening to your customers' voice. Try Toky for free!