In the era of digital transactions and digital consumers, businesses support their customers over the internet through digital platforms, resulting in the emergence of digital customer service. This article briefly describes digital customer service: what it is and why it matters.
What Is Digital Customer Service?
The general definition of digital customer service (DCS) is that it is customer support over the internet. It is a way businesses provide customer support and engage their customers across digital channels such as email, chat boxes, conversational digital assistants, digital messaging (SMS), social media, video, and live agents.
Digital customer service can be one or a combination of these channels to enrich customer interactions and experience and improve overall business contact with the customer. Unlike traditional customer service, it focuses on cultivating and building a relationship with the customer and sustaining customer engagement across multiple channels. This personalized customer support creates a positive customer experience and enables great collaboration.
What Is a Digital Customer Experience?
To better understand digital customer service, you must also understand digital customer experience and its meaning. Digital consumers no longer interact with brands solely through traditional communication. Instead, they use digital channels like mobile apps, social media, and web-based communications to enquire, interact with brands, and support brands. Their journey through this experience is called digital customer experience. It may involve the following:
- Visiting a brand’s website
- Viewing a brand’s social media ads
- Reading a brand’s customer reviews
- Browsing through a brand’s products/services online
- Logging in to a personal account on a brand’s website
- Purchasing through a promo code
- Ordering online
- Receiving an email for order
All these activities create situations where the customer might need to consult, seek support, or communicate with the brand or its representatives. The act of engaging the customer remotely through digital channels is digital customer support.
Why Is Digital Customer Support Important?
Organizations are competing today based on customer experience. Digital customer service helps improve the overall customer experience, creates customer engagement, and helps establish customer relationships. This is important because it:
- Boosts brand experience
- Increases customer satisfaction, loyalty, and trust toward the brand
- Helps provides critical customer reviews, insight, and feedback
- Increases the business’ sales
- Supports low-cost customer support
- Establishes personalized digital interactions, support, and relationships with customers
- Supports real-time customer service
Examples of Digital Customer Service
There are many examples of digital customer service in different areas, such as online retail, service industries, and manufacturers. In retail, examples of digital customer service include order processing emails, responding to customer queries, asking for customer reviews, and offering shopping/coupon codes, which customers can redeem. Other examples include:
- Sending personalized video messages to customers for appreciation or information
- Proactively addressing shipping issues like in Amazon digital customer service.
- Engaging customers on social media platforms
- Cheering up a customer through email or social media
- Offering professional live chat support
- Intelligent support routing to make sure digital customers are directed to suitable agents
- Quick response to customer queries over the internet
Endnote
As consumers continue to evolve and change how they interact with family, colleagues, friends, and businesses, the way of customer support also changes. Businesses must adapt their customer’s mode of communication to reach them where they are and create lasting relationships. Digital customer service helps businesses offer remote customer support to improve customers’ experience and overall brand value.
