Effective customer service is critical to establishing audience loyalty and gaining a competitive advantage. To attain this objective, catering to the discrete needs of the end-users – from quality products to multiple payment solutions – is vital.
Fortunately, deploying technology to your brick and mortar store operations will assist you in identifying and gratifying the target audience. For instance, omnichannel payment solutions, virtual assistants, and AI, allows retail stores to become customer-centric.
4 Ways Technology Is Facilitating Customer Service
Real-Time Response To Customer Queries
Staying in touch with your target audience is critical to learning about their taste and preferences. It allows you to identify and address the dispute at an early stage.
You can use chatbots, artificial intelligence, and social media to understand and respond to customers in real time. It will make them feel heard and establish a deeper connection with the store.
In fact, as most retail stores have begun their operations online – from placing an order to instant delivery – consistent customer engagement via chatbots and social media messaging has become pivotal.
Data-Driven Decisions
A deeper understanding of customer behavior and purchase patterns is critical to serving them. Don’t you agree?
However, with frequently changing product demand, evaluating individual needs is becoming a daunting task for retailers. Consequently, impacting their growth strategy.
Fortunately, the experts at HPS-Worldwide disclose a favorable solution for this issue, i.e., using payment analytics.
The experts opine that payment analytics of omnichannel payment solutions can provide valuable insights. Information collected is used to make decisions and improve your service.
Rising Demand For Self-Service
Thanks to technological advancement, customer preferences are changing drastically. It has given rise to self-service avenues.
A prime example of this would be vending machines. It allows the consumers to get what they desire while saving time. Another example could be shopping via mobile applications.
Now, the question is- How is self-service advantageous for businesses?
Well, embracing self-service programs and systems lowers the cost of operations. Businesses can employ their resources for real-time customer support and engage with them frequently.
Tailored Employee Training
Traditionally, employee training for store and customer management was conducted with a one-size-fits-all approach. However, every person has different capabilities and strengths. While a training technique may work wonders for a few, it may provide entirely different results for others.
Similarly, employee learning and development speed can vary tremendously. Eventually, it will affect your customer service.
Using the latest tools, such as sentiment analysis, allows you to understand employee skills efficiently. This will assist in creating a tailored and effective training program. Let’s take the following scenario for better understanding.
Suppose your store has a five-member team. Here, two employees are well-versed with digital payment solutions, while others have exceptional communication skills. In this scenario, the training should be customized to polish their respective skills.
It will allow the two employees to manage accounts and payments. At the same time, the rest can assist in generating leads.
To Sum It All Up
Technological trends will continue to emerge and shape businesses. Boosting customer service is one of the examples of its perks. So, if your store lacks digital solutions, you’ll miss out on a lot.
Aayush Kumar Gupta is the founder and creator of ExploringBits, a website dedicated to providing useful content for people passionate about Engineering and Technology. Aayush has completed his Bachelor of Technology (Computer Science & Engineering) from 2018-2022. From July 2022, Aayush has been working as a full-time Devops Engineer.