It is nothing new that customers want to easily contact your organization. But if customers want to contact you at any time, via their own preferred channel... are you already prepared for that as an organization? Start with asynchronous communication.
What is asynchronous communication?
When you asynchronous communicate with your customer, the contact does not take place simultaneously. A customer sends a question via WhatsApp and your organization is given (some) time to formulate an answer. When you in sync communicate, are you on a (video) call or do you have an appointment on location. The contact takes place simultaneously. You respond immediately to each other's words, questions and answers. The contact must take place at that moment.
Messaging apps are becoming increasingly important
Most people own a smartphone with, for example, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and SMS. Customers are therefore increasingly 'living' in so-called messaging apps. With these apps we can continuously maintain conversations with friends, complete strangers, but also with companies and institutions. All those conversations run together asynchronously. Recipients respond when it suits them. That is something completely different from synchronous communication where you communicate live with each other.
If you have children yourself, you know what I mean by this. But more and more people from older generations also see messaging apps as the way to communicate with each other. For example, my grandmother now texts just as easily as my children.
With asynchronous communication you increase the response speed of customer service and reduce the pressure on your colleagues.
Is asynchronous communication more customer-friendly than synchronous communication?
Asynchronous communication is a lot more customer-friendly than synchronous communication. You give your customer the opportunity to approach your organization at a time and through the channel that suits them. In addition, your customers can communicate in a way that is just as natural as they do with personal relationships: asynchronously, informally and quickly. Because asynchronous communication has become so natural to people, there is an opportunity for organizations to easily and informally interact with customers and improve the overall customer experience.
The power of asynchronous communication for your organization
Asynchronous communication not only benefits your customer. It also offers benefits for your organization, provided you use the right tools. With the right tools, you can create a complete overview of all asynchronous customer interactions and their context. You directly collect relevant information and data from the digital contact that your organization has with all its customers. Consider, for example, a photo of the damaged product or previous chat conversations.
You then pass on the most relevant data to the other systems within your organization, so that a complete picture is created of the customer's question or what the customer is trying to arrange. You can make this customer information available to your customer service colleagues, for example, so that they can immediately provide the customer with an accurate answer. This increases the response speed of customer service and reduces the pressure on your colleagues. Two birds with one stone.
Communicating asynchronously via messaging apps ensures better CSAT/NPS/CES and service quality results. And that at lower operating costs.
Help your customer even better
Another advantage of asynchronous data communication is that you have the opportunity to first investigate your customer's question. Because before you speak to the customer, you can automatically ask him or her a number of questions. For example, you can ask whether the customer can identify himself by validating certain personal data. Or you can ask your customer to update personal data themselves. Customer service then knows who they are talking to and does not have to check this during the call. Sometimes it is the case that you can better estimate who within your organization can best help the customer. When you use the systems properly, you can put the customer directly in touch with the right person.
This means asynchronous communication for your IT department and customer service
If you use messaging tools to work with asynchronous communication, it is important that you manage the messaging channels within your organization via one central platform for customer service (or other departments that need to view customer data). Once this is done you can route the communication to your customer, prioritize it and assign the right skills for the message so that it can be answered by the right bot or human within the right SLA. Provided you use the differences that these channels offer in an efficient and intelligent way. This then results in better results for CSAT/NPS/CES and service quality. And that at lower operating costs. What organization doesn't want this?
* The translations on this website are provided by G-Translate from Dutch
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