The 21st century brought the communications revolution with it. From the century’s earliest years, the use of a wide range of communication channels and of internet media accelerated sharply. The boundaries came down, and the intensified use of media and social networks now shapes significant processes across the world. This has a decisive effect on the service and sales processes that organizations provide to their customers.
Today’s customers spend many hours of the day on the internet in general, and on forums and social networks in particular. 61% do so mainly from a mobile device (TIM survey, May 2010) which, beyond its basic uses, serves as a “mobile office” and an always-available platform for browsing the internet and for dedicated applications. The conversation often drifts into commercial and consumer topics, and into opinions about the service the various organizations provide.
Where in the past every inquiry or complaint reached a company representative privately, today the dialogue between customer and company is in many cases public. Questions, complaints and verdicts on the level of service a customer experienced are placed in full view on a consumer forum, a social network or an anonymous comment thread.
Almost every organization is there, in internet and social media, whether it wants to be or not.
This reality carries risk alongside considerable opportunity. The conversation in the media holds potential influence over existing customers and over future ones. On one hand, every complaint from a customer is amplified and can whip up a ‘storm’ online, damaging the company’s service image.
On the other, a question or inquiry that appears on some forum or social network and receives a fast, high-quality answer from the organization earns it real credit and leads to an excellent service experience.
An organization that manages to adapt itself properly to the new situation will lead its competitors on service. In an era of significant competition in the market, a durable competitive advantage comes mainly from focusing on the customer, and particularly on the interface points between the organization and its customers, which are the organization’s opportunity to give the customer an experience that retains them over time. ((Gentile, C., Spiller, N., and Noci, G. (2007)
How do we deal with the new reality?
How do you monitor the relevant conversation? How do you decide whom to answer, how to respond, and when it is right not to respond at all? Which channels should carry service? Is it right to build service channels around customer type, or around the point in the customer lifecycle?
How do you synchronize all the channels handling the customer so that the service experience is continuous and consistent and allows movement from one platform to another? Do policy and service processes need to be adapted? When is it right to initiate contact without the customer feeling that “Big Brother” is watching? How do you manage a service crisis in the media while leveraging the spread of information for the benefit of the organization and the customer alike?
First, we have to distinguish between service across multiple channels and multi-channel service (figure 1). Service across multiple channels lets the customer approach the organization in a variety of ways on different topics.
Multi-channel service lets the customer approach the organization in a variety of ways that interact with one another, and the customer can move between the channels if they want to while the handling of their inquiry remains continuous, unbroken and consistent – in branding, in marketing language and in the information given.
The multi-channel service approach covers the mix of channels accessible and available today: the traditional ones – walking into a branch, the call center, SMS messages, fax, web and email – and the newer ones, such as mobile applications, social networks, chats and forums.
As far as the customer is concerned, each of these routes is a legitimate way to engage with the organization, and their handling as a customer should be consistent and fast regardless of the channel they chose to use.
By the three characteristics mentioned above, in an organization where the customer can choose the time, the place and the manner in which they receive service, and where the information they receive is synchronized, consistent and continuous, their service experience will be optimal.
The keys to implementing this concept successfully lie in a number of parameters:
- An organizational shift in mindset – from reactive service to proactive service
- Mapping the organization’s customer needs and the relevant service platforms
- Cross-organization collaboration led by marketing and service
- Adapting policy, work processes, control and documentation
- Training a suitable team
Customers today use the full range of channels for service requests, complaints and purchases. Managing the interaction with the customer in the multi-channel era creates a new vocabulary that changes how performance is measured and how the operation is managed.
An organization that knows how to adapt itself to changes that are happening anyway, prepared for them or not, will be able, despite the threats involved, to seize the opportunities to improve its business and service performance, raise the level of customer satisfaction and so increase long-term loyalty to the organization.
By Liraz Zohar and Shimi Ezer, specialists in Multi-channel service.
