Before diving into multichannel strategies, get your house in order – according the article written by Lauren Horwitz from SearchCRM. A summary of that article is below:
Companies that don't develop processes and internal structures for handling their multichannel strategy can fall short on serving customers through multiple communication channels. Businesses are rushing headlong into multichannel customer service because their customers are rushing there even faster, experts say.
Coming on the heels of a November 2013 customer service benchmark report, eDigitalResearch has released a follow-up study reaffirming its core finding: Live chat is the most satisfying modality for customer engagement. Smart Customer Service posted an article on eDigitalResearch’s findings in the summary below:
The study polled 2,000 nationally representative U.K. customers about their preferences and experiences when dealing with brands over live chat, email, social media, apps, traditional mail, phone, and short message service (SMS). For those that had used live chat to contact a company in the last year (26 percent), 73 percent reported that they were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the experience they had. This is more or less on par with the numbers eDigitalResearch saw in November. Usage, however, is up slightly, from around 24 percent to 26 percent.
Hiring and training for multi-channel support requires a robust understanding of the skills, knowledge, and attributes that lead to successful employee performance and customer experiences in each channel, and overall. Pinpointing the drivers of positive outcomes, and replicating them through smart hiring, training, and coaching practices is key. ICMI has provided a few pointers to get you started in the summary below: