Companies can use technology to create a better brand experience through innovative approaches in product development and design, customer service, marketing, automating monotonous tasks, gaining insights from data and eliminating bias in decision making. However, with many technologically advanced solutions, the user experience can be limited due to a lack of humanism and customisation. Using technology alone is not enough; for it to truly succeed, it must be paired with the human touch.
In CTAPPS, we provide various digital communication solutions – contact center -for businesses that help in scaling marketing activities, providing communication technology and more engaging customer experiences. In this fast pace era, we understand that customers want to be heard and get a response from the customer service team promptly. Besides getting their inquiries to be responded to immediately, customers also want to be engaged with real people instead of robotic voices or bots that could not solve their problems. In this situation, this AI technology is not helpful but only contributes more to their frustration. Here is the importance of having a human customer service that can comprehend the customer's problems and show empathy to them. A hybrid contact center that leverages AI technology and human touch is the answer you need for great customer service and experience. Our contact center is designed to help the customer and agent communicate with each other. We provide a technology that will assign the customer to the right agent, in the right queue to ensure each customer touch point is smooth. Combining a contact center with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool will make the engagement process better as your agent will be able to view the customer's information before the call. The authentication process is also easier and faster without compromising the customer’s privacy where data encryption is fully utilised. When used correctly, technology is an excellent tool that can enhance personalised customer service across all channels.
The right balance between leveraging technology and retaining a human touch can also be achieved with a digital messaging tool that helps you connect with the customer using voice and SMS message broadcasting. With voice and SMS marketing, you can reach thousands or millions of customers in minutes, at the right time, and with the right channel. Another good thing is that you can quickly deliver the message without spending too much time and money. As stated by SMS Comparison, the open rate for SMS is 98%, and 95% of SMS are opened and read within 3 minutes of being delivered. Compared to other communication tools such as email marketing which only have 20% open rates. In addition, the likelihood of a promotional email is stored in the spam inbox is also high. You can combine SMS marketing with voice calls to make the communication more personalise. Voice call can capture the attention of your audience as voice can deliver emotions and gives an honest impression of the voice message. Through the tone of the voice message, you can also deliver the message more sensitive and more personalise making your customer feels they are connected to your company. Leveraging technology with a human unique capability in conveying meaningful voice messages is a good balance between technology and human touch.
Although voice messaging is beneficial, without a proper strategy it can be damaging to your brand and effort. As you might probably know, most people are not keen to pick up calls from numbers they are not familiar with. These might be due to the negative effects of scams and prank calls, feelings of intrusive, anxiety talking on phones and others who just are not comfortable with voice calls. To increase the effectiveness of voice calls you can educate your customers on your current marketing channel, the caller ID that you use and you can also send an SMS to get the customer’s permission to call them. You can start running voice and SMS broadcasting to send notifications, reminders, alerts and promotions today using eBlast. It is a web-based application that allows you to broadcast your voice and SMS messages on the fly and schedule the broadcast for a later time if required. Once you get a good lead, your marketing team can start engaging directly with them. A mixture of humanity and technology helps in striving a better customer interaction. We can rely on technology to fill the gaps in the human workforce but humans as social creatures will still appreciate human-to-human interaction.
In short, technology is a significant part of many businesses. It helps you speed up processes, reach customers more effectively and provide a better customer experience. However, technology should always be coupled with a human touch. The best way to make technology work for you is by blending it with a pleasant and personalised approach. Team up your human workforce with communication technology to help you connect with customer better.
Credit to: SMS Comparison, IMPACT