4 Tips To Improve Customer Service | Salesforce Explained

What's up, everybody? I'm Brian Tong, your guide to all things Salesforce, and this is Salesforce Explained. This is the series where we answer all your Salesforce questions in the simplest of ways. And today's topic is another one of those terms you hear often, but it means different things to so many people. Customer experience. So what is customer experience? Isn't that just like a fancy name for customer service? And why does it matter? I mean, besides making sure you get great online reviews, all of these are great questions, and I would love to tell you, so let's, like, jump right into it. So first up, what is customer experience? Customer experience is the way customers feel when they interact with a company. And it's the sum of all the interactions a customer has with the company. So think back to the last time you called your cable company or maybe booked a vacation when you were finished. How did you feel? Was the experience easy and enjoyable or was it headache inducing? And what if you got your problem fixed, but it took hours on the phone and all kinds of frustration? Yeah, you've been there, haven't you? Like me, too. So a great customer experience means that the company put time and effort into helping you and building a relationship with you. And, you know, a lot goes on behind the scenes, so that experience is solid. Customer experience is more than just a service. Customer experience involves your total perception of the company built up through every interaction you've had. So what kinds of interactions are we talking about? Oh, we're talking about all of them. When someone's on your website or using your app, when they're talking to a sales rep over the phone or commenting on your Instagram, when they visit your store, when they sample a product or sign up for a trial after buying, too, when they start using your product or service, and of course, when they buy all over again. At every one of these moments, customers form judgments about whether a company is living up to their expectations. And is that company making it easy and enjoyable to do business with? Well, the answer that we're looking for here is yes. You know when you walk into your favorite coffee shop and the people working there, they know you like you walk in, they say hi by name and ask if you want your order to go or if maybe you want to try that new chocolate lava cake because they know how much you love dark chocolate. Like, that's delivering a great customer experience. You see, CX is service. It's building relationships. It's knowing what your customers want and how they like to interact with you. Okay, next, let's get into why great customer experiences are so important for company leaders and employees. For starters, it's not enough to offer good products and services at good prices. Your competitors also offer good stuff at good prices. And that's just table stakes. It's really just doing the bare minimum. Kind of like how me and my high school homework were. Yeah, but look, customers, they don't want that. Whether you're a small boutique or giant corporation customers, they want you to know them, they want you to help them think about what's going on, to help them do what they need to do. And this is where you can really get the edge. Customers want unique experiences based on their individual needs and preferences. When you take the time to get to know your customers, to understand really what makes them tick and what really revs their engine, like vroom vroom. And what gets their goat. Meh. Okay, sorry, sometimes I get a little carried away there. But when you build customer relationships together, you build trust and loyalty. And customers, they keep coming back to you. Plus people talk, right? When somebody has a great experience with you, they'll tell their friends and colleagues to give you a look as well. And word of mouth is the ultimate business growing tool. Okay, before we go further, I want to repeat something so it's just super clear. Customer experience is not the same thing as customer service, but customer service is part of the experience. And I'll explain because when we think about customer service, a lot of times it's when something's gone wrong, you can't find what you're looking for. So you know, you ask for help, you want to make a return or exchange, or you have trouble getting started with the product, so you ask for help. Now, whether you go to the customer service counter, click on that part of the website or tweet them with your question, all of those are examples of customer service interactions. And customer experience is the sum of all of your interactions. So great customer experience means providing amazing, almost like magical service at every opportunity. So customer experience includes customer service, but it also includes sales, marketing and so on before, during and after the sale. Alright, so now let's look at how you deliver great cx. Go ahead, just call me Sierra because I'm giving you the 1, 2 step to creating amazing experiences for your customers. Like Mommy D. 12 step. Let's just get a step one. Put your customers first. And maybe this is a mindset shift, or maybe it's something you've been doing subconsciously. Maybe you already do this intentionally, in which case, hey, here's A gold star for you. But no matter what, it's so important to spend time getting to know your customers and thinking holistically about your customers experience across every part of your business. Because if you haven't caught on by now, customer experience is a team sport. You can't have one positive interaction and think your CX is top notch. Whether you're a team of three or 30,000, it's crucial that everyone works together on on delivering a great experience. And you can start by asking what do our customers need? Why would they choose us or competitor? What are their goals? What happens when they're really successful using our product or service? And what are they feeling at each point throughout the process? And now this video will pause until you write down the answers to all those questions. Come on. I'm kidding. I can't actually do that. Well, I actually could. But you might not know the real answers anyways. Now companies who gather feedback from customers, they're really good at this. You can send surveys after transactions, track their nps, that's net promoter score. You can conduct regular win loss calls with their teams or set quotas for numbers of customer calls per week. You want to use data and not guesses to inform your answers. So moving right along to step two, use technology. Okay, so maybe you've been watching and you're all get out of here with this personalized customer experience stuff. Who has the time to do all that? My team is strapped. Well, you're right. I mean you've got to free up time and bandwidth for your team to do this really important work. So you know, let me let you in on a secret. Customer relationship management technology makes it all possible. Now if you've watched the Salesforce Explained what is Salesforce Video, you know a little bit about CRM and it also features a host who is quite good looking and engaging. So I've been told. Now CRM lets you use automation and artificial intelligence for your team and business. So it's how you can do more with a team and resources that you already have. Automation, AI. Brian, you said no tech jargon. But hey, don't be scared. I got you. You're going to know that I'm here to explain all this for you. So the automation built into your CRM makes everyday tasks go faster. So you can be more productive and better serve customers. And you don't have to be super technical or know how to code to use it. You just have to click on a few buttons to get started. And some things you can automate are when A customer emails for help. Your CRM can instantly pull all their details into a ticket or case so you don't have to scramble. You get reminders about when to follow up with someone so none of your customers fall through the cracks and you can put your email marketing campaigns on autopilot. All of these things give you a breathing room to do the more fun and valuable work that moves businesses forward, like building customer relationships or making strategic decisions on what to do next. And then there's AI. And I bet you 100 bucks you're using AI already if you use a virtual assistant like Siri, or you participate in social media with face recognition, or you shop on websites that offer recommended items. Ding ding ding. That is all powered by artificial intelligence. So for today's episode, it's important to know that customers are open to companies using AI to improve the experience that they receive, including chatbots, text and voice analytics, and more. You know, connected customers are knowledgeable and they're technology aware and honestly, they have limited patience for brands that just can't keep up. So you know what, click on the link right here if you want to check out that research. It is super interesting and it also features a host who is quite good looking and engaging. So I've been told, but for now I'm gonna leave it at that. There is so much more to say about automation and AI, so you do not want to miss any of our Salesforce Explained episodes. We'll be deep diving into those topics more later on. And to wrap this all up, delivering outstanding experiences isn't a luxury, it's an expectation. And CRM technology is the easiest way to make it happen. One last piece of advice. Come on now. Honesty is the best possible. This is a relationship that we're talking about, right? Like have you heard the saying trust takes years to build and seconds to destroy? Well, lack of trust can derail a customer's experience before it even starts. And today trust isn't just about whether customers are going to trust your lava cake to be delicious. It's about trusting you to do the right thing with their data. But honestly, your lava cake still has to be delicious if I'm going to trust you. And sure, businesses need some customer data to deliver personalized experiences, but customers need to know that if they hand their data over, it will be kept safe and it'll only be used in ways that are legitimate and beneficial to them. So it's important to be straightforward and clear about how you use customers data. It's a real opportunity to gain and keep customers trust. And as a customer, what more could I want than honesty? Like, really, it sounds like a win win for your business and your customers. And if you replace the word customer with a loved one's name, like mine would be Shauna, then this whole video just got real deep. And I know I'm throwing a lot at you, but when I said I would answer the question, what is customer experience? You know, I got to answer it completely. So if you want to learn more about Salesforce and how you can improve your customer relationships, we've got you covered. Click on the link on the screen and subscribe to the channel for more Salesforce explained. We'll see you all next time.