In the new age of Internet commerce, customer service has significantly changed. To succeed in online business, you need to understand its trends and requirements. In this post we would like to share with you a selection of expert thoughts about digital customer service.
Micah Solomon, business speaker, consultant, bestselling business author
“Millennial customers (born after 1980) bring to the market an entirely new set of expectations. They think differently about customer service, about how they want to be treated in business interactions. It’s a generation of consumers defined by the digital world that they’ve known since infancy. A group of people, larger than the baby boom, who have lived their entire conscious lives immersed in an internet – wifi – smartphone enabled world and have little understanding of the more earthbound systems and expectations that dominated the consumer landscape only a few years ago before the digital customer service era.”
Steven Van Belleghem, one of Europe’s thought leaders in the field of social media, conversations and digital marketing
“The world is becoming more and more digital. The fast adoption of smartphones and tablets has further enhanced transparency. Today, more than half of the consumers use their mobile devices to compare prices while shopping. If a company or brand doesn’t provide a clear added value then consumers will shop for price. The online world has made price transparency very accessible, a trend that spells danger for any company out there without a digital customer service solution.”
Shep Hyken, customer service expert, professional speaker and bestselling author
“Customized experience, be it in person or digital, is your opportunity to connect with the customer as an individual. Companies are able to track a customer’s information through prior purchases, buying patterns and even products and services the customer has simply shown interest in. The digital experience is starting to mirror the in-person experience.”
Jeff Bezoss, CEO Amazon.com
“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000.”
“If there’s one reason we have done better than of our peers in the Internet space over the last six years, it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience, and that really does matter, I think, in any business. It certainly matters online, where word of mouth is so very, very powerful.”
Dion Hinchcliffe, expert in information technology, business strategy, and next-generation enterprises
“The core of the problem companies have in onboarding new digital channels such as social media, is that customers will then expect the company to respond and participate in conversations. And engagement at scale is one of the hardest things for companies to do as they are organized today, despite plenty of studies confirming the significant value in doing so. Remove the barriers to doing engaging in scale and make it a success by supplying tools and proactive organizational policies to orchestrate advocates (employee, partner, and customer) to do the work whenever possible.”
Ekaterina Walter, Social media strategist at Intel
“When customers connect with customer support, all they are looking for are two things: rapid response and accurate information. There are still a lot of brands that cannot provide fast enough response and that continues to be a huge differentiator for a number of companies.”
Dave Kerpen, CEO, Likeable Media
“Online customer support is table stakes now. In order to truly be different, companies must use online customer service to surprise and delight customers. You stand to gain from delighting both complainers and already happy folks.”
