Five Ways Channel-Independence Can Save Your CX

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With digital retail rapidly accelerating and a growing number of consumers shopping online through mobile devices, your customers expect to reach you using the wide array of channels they already use every day.

This means that phone and email alone won’t cut it anymore—many of your shoppers would rather speak to your service agents through newer channels like direct messages, texting, and chat. Adding support for these channels is only half the battle though. Today’s shoppers tend to use channels interchangeably, and 86% expect service agents to move seamlessly between them.

If your company is using a legacy, ticket-and-case-based system, juggling support for multiple channels can be a real challenge and a major waste of time and resources. Here are a few of the ways a channel-independent customer service platform can free your agents to do their best work.

1. Faster service with freedom from duplicate tickets

Ticket-and-case-based legacy platforms silo off each interaction by assigning them to a specific ticket or case number. But what happens if a customer reaches out by email, then follows up with a phone call or chat message? Under a legacy system, two tickets are created and assigned to two separate agents, and you end up with duplicate tickets.

While this may not seem like such a big deal on the surface, duplicate tickets quickly become a major drain on your service team’s efficiency: 92% of companies report that they experience duplicate tickets, and 70% of agents say it impacts their productivity.

A channel-independent service platform eliminates duplicate tickets by bringing all of a customer’s interactions into a single, lifelong conversation, so your agents can stop wasting time tracking tickets and focus on excellent service.

2. No more wrangling multiple systems and tabs

Legacy platforms require agents to constantly switch between systems and channels. In fact, 60% of service agents report juggling at least three systems or tabs at a time. Besides cutting down on speed and efficiency, this tab-wrangling is also a major headache for your agents—so much so that more than half report managing multiple tabs as one of their biggest complaints with their current platform.

A channel-independent platform can bring all channels seamlessly into a single window, allowing your agents to access everything they need without constantly switching tabs.

3. Never ask your shoppers to repeat themselves again

As a customer seeking help, few things are more frustrating than being asked for the same information again and again by multiple agents, and a majority of consumers list being asked to repeat themselves as one of their greatest customer service frustrations.

By allowing your service agents to view all of a customer’s past interactions instantly within a single tab, a channel-independent platform eliminates the need for agents to ask the same questions twice. If a customer speaks to an agent through email, then reaches out for help again through chat, your agent will be able to view both interactions and pick up where the last conversation left off.

4. Get personal with your customer service experience

No one wants to be treated like a ticket number—and most consumers report that they’re more likely to purchase from brands that offer a more personalized experience.

Legacy platforms treat each interaction as an isolated ticket, making it much harder for agents to add a personal touch to conversations. By contrast, a channel-independent customer service platform gives agents easy, simultaneous access to a customer’s identifying information, previous purchases, and conversation history, making it easy to personally welcome each customer.

5. Drive revenue with knowledge

Most service agents are encouraged to cross-sell, upsell, and make recommendations to shoppers—but legacy ticket-and-case-based systems make it almost impossible for agents to offer personalized suggestions. After all, it’s hard to find just the right thing for someone you only know as a ticket number.

The solution? You guessed it: channel-independence.

By making it easy to view a customer’s purchasing history and previous interactions at once, a channel-independent platform gives your service agents the knowledge they need to make personalized, individually tailored upsells and recommendations.

See the Gladly difference

Ready to get started with a fully channel-independent experience? Gladly’s all-in-one customer service platform brings interactions across all channels into a single, lifelong conversation—complete with an intuitive, easy-to-use user interface.

To see how Gladly can help your brand provide seamless, radically personal customer service, request a demo.