It’s no secret that the consumer landscape is ever changing.  People want what they want when they want it – now.  And they want it on their terms. Companies need to listen to their consumers and deliver goods and services when the buyer wants it and how they want it. While the digital world has forced a different buying experience, one thing hasn’t changed – the consumer’s need for personal interaction.

A key challenge for businesses moving forward is finding ways to offer personalized human interaction in the broader context of an omni-channel strategy. Is your business keeping up with the digital revolution while providing a high-quality customer experience? AnswerNet can help improve your customer experience and better engage with prospects. Here are five (5) ways your company can meet your customers where they are and provide personal interactions that will turn them into recurring and referring clients.

5 Ways to Humanize Interactions

If you want to add a warmer touch to your communication and humanize your business’ digital interactions, try these options:

Create Lasting, Memorable Experiences

An exciting and memorable customer experience is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Your customers are as unique as the services you provide them. Be flexible. Offer customized options to your audience. Because what works well for one loyal customer may not suit another, be sure you have different ways to meet needs and deliver on them. 

To create a positive and memorable experience for your target base, you must create a personalized customer service experience. This customer experience strategy should accommodate the unique needs of the customers while still upholding your business’ overall vision.

Humanize Social Media Communications

Everyone who is anyone utilizes and sometimes abuses a variety of social media platforms. Consumers of all ages, backgrounds, and wants and needs are inundated in the social media realm with sales tactics and ads (re-targeting anyone?). But what they really want is a genuine connection. Humanizing your brand on social media will build relationships – prospective, client, referral and more.

Social media is a dominant marketing tool that can make or break connections between an audience and your business. To truly engage with your audience, they have to feel like they are talking to a human. Talk WITH your customers, not AT them. Creating this natural conversation can help your business further understand your audience and build trust and credibility among your followers.

Create a Personalized Customer Service Experience

Just as every customer and potential customer is unique, so are customer service teams.  Your team is the frontline of your business, the ones who engage with your customers all day, every day. They get to know your audience on a more personal level than anyone else. Traditionally, customer service has been very focused on often hard to reach targets. Agents can only be on a call for X amount of minutes, they have to follow a script, etc. The lack of flexibility is bad for agents and customers.

If you give agents more freedom to vary their communication style, your prospects will notice.  Your conversion rates will improve.

Be Available to Your Customers

know your audience on a more personal level than anyone else. Traditionally, customer service has been very focused on often hard to reach targets. Agents can only be on a call for X amount of minutes, they have to follow a script, etc. The lack of flexibility is bad for agents and customers.

If you give agents more freedom to vary their communication style, your prospects will notice. 

Be Available to Your Customers

Building a positive rapport with a customer gives them credence to share their positive experiences – a company that helped them in a time of need and did it with a friendly approach. Customers want to be listened to and treated like a real person with legitimate wants and needs when it comes to their questions or queries. They don’t want to be rushed through a call with an agent who can’t tell them apart from the last caller.

Consumers feel special and important when you give them your time and expertise. Successful businesses stand out because they provide live agents willing and able to interact with customers no matter where or when.

Add Live Chat to Your Website

Availability is key and live chat is one way to accomplish this for your customers. Today, your customers expect to see live chat on your website. In fact, they’ll notice when it’s not there. Research shows that more than 80% of customers expect instant responses from brands. Live chat is a great way to provide those instant responses and help turn a prospect into a customer. A site visitor might be deciding between you and a rival brand and need a question answered quickly. Your business can win them over if they receive an instant, helpful response via a chatbot. 

Improve Your Customer Service Today

Technology continues to advance, and customer engagement continues to evolve. However, it’s easy to get caught up in the technological trend and statistics and forget about the human element of business. The digital age hasn’t changed the inherent need of consumers for human interaction and a great customer experience. Customers want to feel relevant and that they’ve made a good choice in picking you over your competitors.

AnswerNet is proud to offer the human element to all digital interactions between you and your customers. Contact us today to learn more.