Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Meet Your 21st Century Customer

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Meet Your 21st Century Customer We are now closer to 2020 than 2010. Whether you are a business owner or one employee out of thousands, and whether your job title is IT director or call center specialist, everyone today is in customer service. Here are eight mandates of modern customers you must heed if you want to remain competitive. Customization The era of mass production of goods and services is over. Your customer wants a certain style of shirt in a certain color and a certain size and he wants it today. Be prepared to adapt your current offerings to whatever your customers have identified they need, and think about how to price accordingly. Human contact Some automation is to be expected, but when your customer decides she needs to talk to a person, give her a person. Companies that force customers to push “0” a million times to no avail are losing business, guaranteed. This will be harder to do, but even more important, as machines take over more and more business functions. Social media responsiveness Whether they’ve had a good experience or a bad one, your customers will share it over Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Put a system in place to manage your properties every day so you can show them you’re listening to feedback and that you care, and so that you can put out small fires before they turn into a conflagration. Mobility Any piece of information you provide to a customer has to be mobile-accessible. That means she can do anything, anywhere, on any device. Mobility is no longer a “nice to have” but an imperative. At the same time, don’t forget the late adopters and keep your standard device support around for a while. Multiple touch points Some customers like Live Chat while others prefer to email. Some might even prefer to wait 45 minutes on the phone. I personally love when companies let me schedule the time for the customer rep to call me back. The point is, give people options and don’t limit them to getting in touch during 9-5 business hours. Self-service When it comes to simple activities like placing an order, canceling a subscription or updating an address, provide mechanisms so customers don’t have to bother you or waste their time. If you’re doing this right, your customers shouldn’t need you most of the time. For the rest of the article, visit Intuits Fast Track blog.