One Size Never Fits All — Even When It Comes To Customer Service Platforms
We know that different business models require different customer support models. The needs of a global mobile gaming company will differ from those of a boutique online marketplace. Likewise, even within a company, different departments and geographic locations may be best suited to varying customer service strategies. However, despite the fact that the vast majority of companies recognize that one size doesn’t fit all, many customer service platforms used today do not offer the flexibility required to offer the right experience to different segments of customer bases.
There are a few tenets that hold true across industries, companies, and customer service strategies, but the ways in which each company decides to uphold these tenets can come in many shapes and sizes.
How Brands Around the World Offer Superior Customer Service in Strikingly Different Ways
There are two constants that all successful customer service platforms appeal to:
- Providing a convenient front-end service experience for the customer
- Efficiently resolving customer problems through data and ease of use
Getting to these constants, though, looks very different from brand to brand, business model to business model, and location to location.
To illustrate this, here’s how two different brands with three different customer bases and completely different business models leveraged the same platform for effective approaches to customer service.
1. A Fast-Growing Asian Hotel Chain Leverages Mobile Chat
Red Planet, one of the fastest-growing hotel chains in Asia, wanted to offer mobile support for its digital-native customer base — without building out a separate dedicated support team. The company used Helpshift to offer in-app messaging between hotel staff and guests so that guests who have a question, whether it’s during the booking process or during their stay, can speak with someone in real-time from wherever they are.
This approach not only helped decrease time-to-first-response by 73 percent, but also helped Red Planet’s support staff resolve issues in less time, on the go. For example, front desk employees at one hotel use an agent app that allows them to respond to messages on a mobile phone wherever they are on the premises or otherwise. Hotel staff can chat back and forth while going about their other duties, which creates a more seamless user experience for employees and guests alike
2. A Mobile Wine Marketplace Uses Robust Self-Service Options and Efficient Ticket Routing
While in-app messaging is a convenient and effective customer service channel for customers (and agents, as mentioned above), use case-specific platform tools can also be leveraged to help on the operations side.
Vivino, a mobile wine marketplace, decided to take a different tactic for exceeding customer expectations: robust self-service with smart ticket routing to get issues solved quickly and efficiently through messaging, email and phone calls.
The Vivino team supports eight languages across 11 countries and corresponding time zones, and also serves two customer bases: suppliers and buyers. Because of these factors, the team leveraged the Helpshift customer service platform to do two things: deflect tickets through an effective multilingual knowledge base, and automatically route tickets to the agent best equipped to handle the question at hand based on channel, language and specialization.
Through implementing these tools, Vivino has successfully deflecting 95 percent of tickets through knowledge base articles, thereby freeing up agent time for the remaining five percent. This resulted in a 90 percent improvement in time to initial response, as well as an 85 percent CSAT rating.
It’s All About Finding Those Customer Service Platforms That Can Support Your Team and Customer Base
These are just two examples of how a platform can be leveraged for different teams and customer bases. Chances are, your team and customer needs are different from both of these examples — and effective customer service platforms should be able to cater to your highly specific use case.
The secret to success for every customer service team lies in finding the right tools that can support your unique (and evolving!) needs. For more examples and in-depth stories of how Helpshift has enabled exceptional brands to deliver exceptional service, download our Secrets to Success Playbook here.
