There has been a boom in customer expectations for businesses they purchase from recently. This simply comes down to the convenience of communications between customers and businesses in 2023. There is instant two-way communication available between customers and the companies that they purchase from. This means customers expect quick and instant reactions from businesses, they want regular communications regarding their orders, potential offers available to them, and more. This can be challenging for you to offer as a business, however. How can you automate customer communications in order to make the process as simple as possible? In this article, we will answer this question with a list of methods to automate and make your communications strategy easy to build and maintain.
#1 – Shipping updates
“Where is my parcel?” This is one of the most common customer complaints that businesses will get. Although it is unavoidable at times for parcels to go missing. You can reduce the number of these complaints by incorporating tracked parcel shipping updates for your customers. By providing regular tracked updates for customers via a tracking code and emails you are able to keep your customers in the know regarding their orders.
#2 – Order confirmations
These are standard across all industries and are something you need to be providing to customers who complete a purchase. This is simply an automated email confirming what has been ordered, the mailing and billing addresses, and other general information. Without an order confirmation, your customer is going to be wondering if the order went through. Usually, they will come through straight to the email provided by the customer. Without one you are likely to get many customer calls regarding their orders and potentially some cancelled orders.
#3 – FAQ page
Sometimes when you are looking to automate customer communications, you do not need to set up any complicated systems. By simply offering your customers an easy-to-access FAQ page they will be able to look up and fix many common problems themselves. This will save the amount of calls going through to your customer service team as well as letting your customers quickly resolve any simple issues they come across. Having to go through multiple emails or customer service representatives can create buyer’s remorse and cause an increase in returns and a reduction in repeat customers.
#4 – Keep communications on customers’ preferred platforms
Your customers have their preferred platforms and love to gain information on these platforms. Whether it is by text, email, social media, or any other method. By providing your communications across platforms you are making sure that all of your customers feel listened to. This kind of communications strategy is called an ‘omni channel strategy’. If you want support with setting up and creating omni channel communications with ease, check out the HC suite.
#5 – Live chat
Sometimes customers cannot get their answers from an FAQ page. Whether it is a more specific issue, or it is something that simply requires a human touch, by offering a live chat option to your customers you will be able to solve a much wider variety of problems and maintain happy customers. This option does not need to be available 24/7 although the more convenient it is the better. Depending on the amount of chat requests you are receiving you may want an automated chatbot to weed out the simple requests and send the more specific ones to your live chat team.
Automate Customer Communications With Sefas
So there you have 5 ways that your business can automate customer communications. Here at Sefas we are all about making customer communications strategies easy. We offer a CCM software called the Harmonie Communication Suite (HCS) that provides all of the necessary tools to create an omni channel customer communications strategy. A variety of different companies, such as banks, insurance companies, and more, use our software to provide secure and effective communications to their customers. To find out more about how our software can support your business specifically, get in contact today.