Impact of Customer Support CRM in influencing buying decisions

Impact of Customer Support

Today’s brands don’t command much recognizability where impulse purchase dominates the buying roster.This means that purchase rates have flat-lined or dipped for businesses that fail to innovate or make themselves look appealing.

The present day customers are well-versed in utilizing their umpteen options. Customers frequently shift from one app to another, seeking their own best offers and discounts.This stands true for influencing buying decisions across the segments. This includes FMCG, Real estate, Hospitality etc. Additionally, they also depend on

word of mouth publicity.

“The experience that individuals have with a company and then what they hear from friends and family influence their likelihood to do business with a company,” says Megan Burns, a senior analyst at Forrester Research.

Customers trust their peers over advertisements. Likewise, they trust online reviews, social media feedback and online ratings. The recent finding of Moz.com show that 67% of customers cited online reviews asfairly, very or absolutely important” in their online purchasing decisions.

The fact is that the News of bad customer service reaches more than twice as many ears as compared to praise for a good service experience [Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs]. So, it is vital to improving the customer support so as to retain old customers and acquire new buyers.

The present method of influencing customer purchase decisions

Many FMCG companies spend thousands of dollars promoting their products, trying to blend a positive image in the industry. Yet often they treat customer support as a necessary evil.

But remember, customer support can be a customer’s first point of contact with your organization. And if they like you and continue to like you, they will keep continuing to do business with you and more importantly, recommend you to others.That is why customer experience is now considered to be a new battlefield – 62% of companies view customer experience as a main competitive differentiator [Source: Deloitte].

The quality of experience does matter more than anything to your customers.As per research, 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience [Source: CEI Survey].And this tendency is gradually on the rise among the customer; no matter what they are buying. According to a Walker study, by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.

As for the FMCG industry, companies frequently need to interact with customers to resolve their issues straight away. This is exceeding the high level of expectations.So, now it’s getting imperative to re-think the customer service strategies to enhance the experience level.

Improve Customer Experience with CRM

Image Source: Genesys

Incorporate live chat option within your website

The trouble with online grocery shopping is that the customers are usually disconnected from someone, who can resolve their queries in real time with precision. Rather than watching potential buyers clicking away from their FMCG sites, many businesses have added live chat support on their websites.

Incorporating a live chat facility allows you to be exactly where customers need you at a moment’s notice.

The significance of live chat cannot be overstated, as witnessed by the findings of a study by Zendesk, which revealed 92% customers feel satisfied when they use the live chat feature, compared to other communication options like voice (88%), email (85%), web form (85%), and social media (Facebook 84%, Twitter 77%).

Creating a cloud customer account on your FMCG CRM system, you can track customer interaction history through live chat. It will help you to get insights on customer engagement and provide constructive ideas about improving your customer experience.

Increase social media presence

The days of helplines and email support are gradually dwindling; now we are living in the age of social networks. Today, people love to talk about their experiences and recent purchases. They like to follow their favorite brands’ pages, and spot their recent activities, offers and events.

An active presence in social channels increases customer engagement since you can interact with your customers directly. Integrating all the popular social channels with your FMCG CRM software helps you to receive real time notifications, including messages and comments. Thus, you can enhance your customer loyalty by giving prompt responses to your customers’ social feedback and queries.

Implement multichannel ticketing

To leverage your omni-channel support, you must develop your ticket management system, incorporating each channel with the ticket generation procedure.

How to manage tickets within a CRM system?

CRM software gives you the opportunity to generate a unique ticket number for each query so that you can manage and follow up the query, tracking the unique code number.Ticket Management

Now, how to manage multi channel tickets within the system?

A multi channel ticket management system segregates the sources (email/ call/ social media/ live chat) of customer queries, along with enquiry details.

This application will help you manage customer queries more efficiently, thus, aiding your customer satisfaction and generating loyalty.

Bring forth self-service help

Self-service has become a popular medium by which customers try to resolve problems and learn more. Today’s tech-savvy buyers are not only ready for self-service, but actually, prefer it over assisted service.

The time is not so far when a customer will manage maximum things with an enterprise, without interacting with a single person. 70% of the customers expect a website to include self-service application [Source: Slide share.

So, make sure to provide your customers, the direction, and tools they need to get done with their tasks themselves.

Conclusion

The quality of customer support is fundamental to understanding brand health. Nowadays, a business’s reputation is only as good as the customer service it offers. Besides, a strong customer support team can aid in reducing churn and securing the highest sales revenue.

Going forward, a competitive advantage is enormous for all businesses functioning in today’s market economy. You must have a myriad of competitors that offer similar products and services. Here, customer service can be the only factor that can help you to step ahead of the crowd.

Utilize CRM software to empower your customer service team.

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