Why Brands Need to Pivot Towards Building an Identical Support Experience

Today’s consumers are tech-savvy individuals who use multiple channels to communicate with family and friends. But even with separate channels, the ability to contact someone, share information, and have a personalized interaction are the same regardless of the channel it is happening on. Whether it’s through voice, text, or sharing photos and videos, the experience is identical.

While businesses have traditionally viewed support as offering unique customer experiences for each channel, such as different IVR trees for voice IVR and visual IVR or separately designed automated agents in website chat compared to in-app chat support, consumers are increasingly wanting to communicate with brands in the same way that they communicate with each other.

Optimizing Channels for Customer Support dives into the importance of building identical support experiences, no matter the channel by looking into three separate industry verticals: e-commerce, on-demand transportation, and on-demand food delivery. By researching these three verticals, we are able to look at the trends and expectations for differing levels of urgency and customer expectations.

In our 2019 survey, we found that offering customer support across multiple channels and touchpoints is just the tip of the spear, and while many companies have been successful in terms of adding channels, there is room for improvement when optimizing and promoting those channels in order to meet the needs of consumers both today and moving forward.

From uploading videos, photos, and screenshots to support agents in real-time, to being able to use facial recognition and thumbprint verification, we identified a wide array of features and applications that customers said would improve their experience.

The survey reveals many interesting data points including consumers’ high desire to text with a live agent in real-time. 70 percent also stated that the use of in-app messaging and chat would improve their customer support experience.

As Millennials and Generation Z fully embrace their influential buying power, brands will have to cater to the communication channels they want. Instead of falling behind and potentially losing customers, it’s time to develop your customer support experience to be identical across every channel offered.