How Customer Service Has Changed Over the Past Year and How You Can Adapt

When the COVID-19 crisis started, a lot of companies did not know exactly how they would handle their customer service operations. They were able to find what appeared at the time as short-term fixes, but as we have seen over the past year, some of these temporary stop-gap measures have turned into long-term policies. Today we will share with you some of the ways customer service has changed over the past year with the COVID-19 pandemic and what you can do to adapt.

Empathy is Now Given the Utmost Importance 

While empathy was an important aspect of customer service even before the pandemic, it has taken on greater importance. This includes empathizing with customers who lost their jobs and cannot make payments, accepting returns beyond a certain time window, and many other things to help consumers who are adjusting to the new reality. This trend is backed up by data from HiverHQ which shows that 34% of consumers feel that customer service should be more responsive and empathetic due to the pandemic. 

We can say from our personal experience here at Mindy Support that empathizing with our client’s customers has helped us increase our CSAT and other important metrics. In turn, this allowed our clients to increase customer retention rates and maximize the lifetime value of the customers. Therefore, we highly recommend taking a closer look at empathy and what you can do to help your customers who are going through tough times. 

Customer Service is Becoming a Key Differentiator

Companies across industries are looking for new and creative ways of separating themselves from the competition. What we are seeing now is that customer service is becoming a key differentiator and, more specifically, the experience they are able to provide their customers. In fact, 89% of consumers have switched to doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience while 52% of consumers say they have made an additional purchase from a company after a positive customer service experience. Last but certainly not least, offering outstanding customer experiences can dramatically improve your bottom line. Research from Bain Capital shows that companies that excel at customer experience drive revenues 4% to 8% higher than those of their market. 

What this shows is that even though there are certain costs associated with improving the customer experience such as hiring and training agents, these costs will definitely pay off in the long run. Of course, you can always outsource your customer service needs to a dedicated service provider, like Mindy Support, and avoid having to pay the overhead costs mentioned earlier. 

Multi-Channel Support Has Become the New Standard

In the past, companies could get away with offering a handful of communication channels, but what we are seeing nowadays is that customers prefer to use a wide variety of methods to contact you. This includes things like live chat to assist them in their shopping experience and get help after the purchase as well. In fact, 73% of customers find live chat to be the most satisfying way of communicating with a business. Platforms like Facebook Messenger, Twitter DM, Instagram messaging, WhatsApp, WeChat, and others are emerging as increasingly popular channels.

This brings us to the omnichannel experience which connects all of the various communication channels into a seamless experience. For example, if a customer first contacts you via live chat and then calls you on the phone, they don’t want to have to explain their issue or question a second time. Even though different people are working those channels, an omnichannel platform needs to connect all of these channels. 

Trust Mindy Support With All of Your Customer Support Needs

Whether you are looking to set up an entire offshore customer support team or simply extend the team you already have in-house, Mindy Support offers comprehensive solutions to meet all of your needs. We are one of the largest BPO providers in Eastern Europe with more than 2,000 employees in six locations all over Ukraine. Our size and location allow us to source and recruit the needed number of candidates within a short time frame and we can scale your team quickly without sacrificing the quality of the customer support. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you.