Guide for Customer Care in 2018 – exclusive interview with 12 international experts
Customer Care has an impact, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, on every aspect of your business. Customer satisfaction is influenced by the quality and speed of your replies. In 2018, Customer Care is more digital than ever, but the key remains the empathy. After interviewing 12 Customer Care experts, Anthony Rochand and myself offer you the 21 best recommendations to start 2018 with expert advice.
For an optimal customer care strategy in 2018, you must think digital. We've spent most of 2017 digitalizing our conversations, torn between chatbots and human touch. Worry not, 2018 is the bridge between human and machine and you will find strategies to offer automated yet human services benefiting from proximity and speed.
12 international customer care experts have taken the time to share their very best tips for 2018 so you could offer your customers incredible services. Don't forget to download the complete guide!
In this exclusive guide, our experts advise you on various topics such as customers expectations, team management, negative comments handling, chatbots usage, customer care tools, customer journey improvement or omni-digital strategies.
Here are some of the tips you'll find in this guide:
 |
"Messaging apps are true customer care channels allowing interactions with your customers. Apps such as Whatsapp can be a real differentiator for your brand and help you satisfy your clients. Messaging apps also allow proximity and help you increase customer loyalty." Anthony Rochand |
 |
"When a customer reaches out for help, respond quickly. That doesn't mean by tomorrow. It means today. And not hours from now. Some of the rock-star brands in customer service make it a point to respond in under two hours, with an effort to do it much quicker – sometimes within minutes. Want to stand out from your competition? Be quick to respond to your customers." Shep Hyken |
 |
"Email remains a major communication channel. You must avoid automatic replies and always customize and give a context to your answers. The advantage of email over Social Media is that it is asynchronous. If you wish to reduce the number of emails, let people know at the end of your reply which other channels are available and might bring faster answers." Patrick Barrabé |
 |
"Multi-screen and mobile development leads to rethinking the customer journey in an omni-channel manner. Performances are more and more measured within the offered customer experience, beyond multi-channel or cross-channel. Communication within and around the point of sales is a good example. You must be ready to rework your processes to improve service quality and better reach your target." Maud Jenni |
 |
"A good Customer Care strategy starts with being where your clients need you most. Today, with the new « digital-native » generations, it means being available on digital channels. Regrouping these in a single platform allows you to efficiently pilot all different sources, but also to balance your workload on your teams to ultimately offer more homogenous and faster responses to your clients." Eric Dos Santos |
 |
"In 2018, we have to offer a personalised and contextualised experience to our customers. Buyers receive more and more offers and aren’t necessarily loyal. I regularly meet with companies telling me the only regular communication they have with their customers is an invoice. With Marketing Automation, you can send customized and contextualized emails based on clients profiles and past transactions." Ludovic Salenne |
 |
"Bet on Customer Care and training to be able to respond to customers enquiries quickly and let them know their requests have been well received. The number of available channels has grown and you now must choose the right ones and manage them properly. It is necessary to train your teams because, regardless of the channel, they must know how to handle a disappointed customer." Catherine Cervoni |
 |
"Don’t be afraid to respond to negative comments, you should do it! Each complaint is a gift from your customer that gives you a new improvement angle." Cédric Blum |
 |
"Email marketing remains popular. Emails are being checked continuously throughout the day and your recipients will keep opening your messages if they trust you, if your content is attractive, of quality and well targeted. 39% of recipients claim that promotional emails influence their buying decision. For 24% of them, such emails help discovering new brands, products or services. This is why 70% of marketing teams keep using this channel." Philippe Gastaud |
 |
"Your customer service should be able to answer on both synchronous and asynchronous channels. More and more, companies go towards self-service to limit human interactions (FAQ, chatbots, forums, etc.) However, there should always be a fallback for your visitors to contact a human agent. You must give autonomy to your agents so they could make decisions easily. Here too, measuring customer satisfaction post-interaction is important so you could react quickly if the result isn’t positive." Frederic Canevet |
 |
"Using a chatbot becomes necessary in 2018. Consumers want to chat with brands directly without having to use a contact form. A bot will manage part of customer interaction through programmed suggestions to guide the visitor and help him find quick answers." Julien Bréal |
 |
"Uber, Amazon, Blablacar, Alibaba aren’t necessarily your direct competitors, but they have seriously raised the bar when it comes to your customers expectations. If a company can reply my message within 20 minutes, why does another force me to use a web form to reply me 4 days later? Your customers expectations have evolved, they want to select their own conversation channels and need quick replies." Julien Rio |
We wish you an excellent read!
Entrepreneur specialized in web marketing, I have been developing online platforms and strategies for numerous companies across Europe and Asia.Through those experiences I have managed large teams and handled various projects involving Marketing Strategy, digital marketing, SEO, communication & PR, web development, trade shows & exhibitions, social media, emailing campaigns, design, etc.
In this blog I share my experience and knowledge. Please feel free to reach out if you have specific projects for which you would need my expertise.
Julien Rio.
Français
English