New research released by the Institute of Customer Service highlights that retailers are potentially missing out on £1.9 billion in future sales by not offering ‘excellent’ customer service on Black Friday.
ICS Figures show that customers who experienced higher levels of service are more likely to return to the retailer and make future purchases.
- Of those customers who experienced ‘excellent’ customer service, 94% shopped with that same retailer again, and spent an average of £201 over the next year.
- Those who experienced ‘average’ customer service were not only less likely (75%) to return, they also spent significantly less, at £158 over 12 months.
- Last year, 63% of people made a purchase on Black Friday according to the Institute’s research, with an average spend of £185, but many spend more.
This year Barclaycard estimates that UK Black Friday spending finished up 8% on 2016. With so much at stake retailers need to be prepared to service customers across all channels.
- 66% of consumers say they actively use 3 or more channels (Microsoft State of Global Customer Service Report 2017)
- When companies engage and respond to request over social, those customers end up spending 20-40% more (Bain & Company)
To compete effectively, retailers need to be able to assist customers on the channels they choose, in near real-time. Even when the pressure is on and it’s peak sales season. A casual approach is no longer enough in today’s digital world.
Here’s a few simple tips to help retailers move from being ‘average’ to ‘excellent’ in the social customer service department:
Be organized
Use a dedicated customer engagement platform for retailers such as Sentiment to organize your digital channels and provide an easy way for customer agents to see and respond to incoming messages. This ensures you won’t miss any messages and can quickly identify those customers that need a response.
71% of consumers who experience positive social customer care are likely to recommend the brand to others, compared with just 19% of customers who do not get a response (NM Incite)
Be responsive
Make it as easy as possible for customers to reach you on social media. Show your support team opening hours on your social profile to help manage customers expectations about when they’re likely to receive a response. Use intelligent automations to filter out noise and spam and route priority mentions straight to the right team member.
Be personal
72% of respondents expect agents to already know who they are, what they’ve purchased, and have insight into their previous engagements (Microsoft State of Global Customer Service Report 2017)
Invest in a customer service tool with last agent routing functionality to ensure that customers get to talk to the same person. This also means agents can resolve things more quickly if they have the background and a view of any previous conversation history.
Use the right tone when engaging on social media and ensure it reflects your brand personality. Address customers by name and sign off messages with initials or a name to give your brand a human face. Avoid canned responses when responded publically as customers notice when you’re sending the same response to everyone and it doesn’t feel personal.
Be informed
Ensure you can measure and benchmark your key Customer service metrics to show performance improvements and justify continued investment in your. Run or schedule regular reports to understand your peak contact times and measure your response rates and times against company SLAs.
Take advantage of CSaT functionality (available through customer app providers such as Sentiment) to get instant feedback about customer satisfaction. The simple survey format and ease of reply means great response rates, often above 50 per cent. You can then benchmark your satisfaction scores against your other channels and spot any key trends.
Be successful!
Ensure you don’t miss out on repeat business by ignoring customers on digital channels. The chances are they won’t buy from you again.
Make sure your customer care is the best it can be.
Find out how Sentiment helps hundreds of retailers provide ‘excellent’ customer engagement with our game changing and unique platform.
We help eCommerce Customer Care Teams (with over 5 agents) Slash Customer Response Time 2000% and Costs 50% All While Accelerating Sales And Customer Loyalty
You bring the customers, we help you delight them
Thousands of users from the worlds most innovative retailers
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Client Success Stories
18 X Improvement In Customer Response Time
Before
Before engaging with Sentiment.io we were struggling to respond to our online customers in a timely manor due to the sheer demand of our market leading offering. Many customers were waiting several hours or more to get a response.
After
We started working with Sentiment and targeted a consistent response time below one hour. The results were staggering we have managed to achieve an average response time of 11 minutes, with exactly the same number of team members. We are delighted as are our customers.”
CHARMAINE // Head of Customer Experience
1385% increase in customers responded to
Sentiment “worked tirelessly in meeting our business needs, providing guidance at every step to ensure a smooth onboarding process, always listened to feedback that resulted in faster product innovations, and promptly communicated latest developments and recommendations - all of which has led to uSwitch being able to deliver a much higher standard of customer service online than ever before, and consequently, a very happy customer care team too.
It has been a fantastic journey so far for uSwitch and Sentiment”
DEW // Former Social Media Manager, Uswitch
Award winning customer care
“With their partnership approach and knowledge in the customer care sector, we selected Sentiment due to the companies strong service reputation and the capabilities of its engagement technology. Sentiment is a valuable partner for us – helping us drive faster resolution and providing our customers with fast and convenient ways of contacting us. They have been excellent in supporting us and helping us achieve our vision”
PETER // Head of Operations, Caravan and Motorhome Club
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Try Sentiment risk free for 30 days and if you do not get a significant reduction in customer response time (with generally leads to happier customers with more sales at a lower cost) just send us a message and we'll refund your money, no questions asked. We are the only eCommerce customer engagement vendor we know of to offer this Iron clad guarantee which we think you will agree speaks volumes for our confidence to deliver great success for you.
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