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Beware False Scorecards for B2C Chat

By Shai Berger on January 8, 2020

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There’s an interesting and high-stakes battle taking place right now in the world of customer service: What will be the dominant text-based channel for B2C communications? SMS remains the most ubiquitous channel, but least flexible. Competing against it are the big corporate-owned messaging platforms: Messenger and WhatsApp (both from Facebook), Apple’s Business Chat, and Google’s offering called (for now) Google My Business Chat.

I recently gave a talk at the TADSummit conference on this battle and the challenges in measuring the progress. Slides are available here and video here.

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5 Brand Websites Doing Customer Service Right

By Ben Ringshall on November 21, 2019

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Zappos. Apple. Wistia. Netflix. Whatever your business or its size, the first place your customers go when seeking help is your website. And if they can’t find the information they need there, you’re going to lose them.

You don’t have to be reachable by phone 24/7, but you do have to give your customers a way to solve their problems or get in touch when they can’t help themselves.

Here, we look at some major brands that are doing customer service in all the right ways, but most especially on their websites. We take a magnifying glass to these websites and give you the means to up your website game, too.

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Best Practices For Integrating Messaging Into Your Customer Service Strategy

By Jessica Suezin on September 24, 2019

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From SMS to live chats, messaging is becoming an important part of different companies’ sales and customer service strategy. Many major brands have adopted some form of messaging to assist customers prior to, during, and even after a sale has been made. This powerful feature has the capability to help companies both drive sales and increase customer satisfaction.

Despite the rising popularity of messaging features like SMS, live chats, and social media messaging, it’s important to adopt this strategy in the most effective way. Here are a few best practices to ensure that your messaging strategy helps your customers, your employees, and your revenue. Continue reading →

Why Your Customer Service Strategy Should Include Online Chat

By Jessica Suezin on September 10, 2019

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You’ve probably already noticed: There is a major shift towards messaging in the customer service game. While call centers remain important, many brands are moving towards online conversations with customers over SMS, social media, and live chat. Need proof? Look no further than Shopify’s roll-out of Apple Business Chat to over 80,000 merchants. Or, look at WhatsApp Business, recently announcing that the app is now being used by 5 million small business owners.

From SMS to live chats, it’s clear that messaging is becoming an important part of any brand’s sales and customer service strategy. So, what’s all the hype about? Let’s take a look at a few reasons why messaging is becoming increasingly popular and how implementing a chat feature can benefit your business. Continue reading →

Acquisitions Point to Messaging’s Future in Customer Service

By Shai Berger on June 5, 2019

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Big question: How should text-based communication work alongside voice for customer service? In the dark ages, the only answer to this was email, in its own silo, and a call center, in its own silo. Then real-time chat came along. And then messaging, powered by massive platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, made an appearance. Meanwhile, driving in its own lane, is good ‘ol SMS.

For now, you can find companies trying any or all of these strategies. You can read success stories in each. But, at some point, it’s likely that one of these channels will become the dominant companion to voice. By that I mean it will have enough critical mass that it’s just assumed by consumers that any large company will offer it, in the way we assume any large company has a toll-free number and an email address.

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Contact Centers? Say Hello to 2019

By Shai Berger on January 9, 2019

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2018 was a big year for the contact center industry. Major product launches, intriguing acquisitions, new entrants, re-emerging giants. Added to the mix were the frustrating dalliance with AI, the quasi-melding with CRM, the embrace of chatbots, and the rise of RPA. All juicy topics worth exploring.

We’re going to dive into all of the above on our blog this year, along with our usual coverage of industry reports, public company earnings, fun posts about call center life, findings from our sister site OnHoldWith.com, webinars, hangouts, Fonolo news (of course), and more.

Buckle up for an exciting year ahead!

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How Will People Contact Companies Next Year? Beware Cohort Behavior Studies

By Shai Berger on November 6, 2018

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Everyone involved in customer service wants to understand consumer channel preference. Otherwise, how can you allocate resources between phone, email, chat, SMS messaging and social channels?

So, we’re all involved in a little anthropology project. In my best David Attenborough voice: “Let’s observe this 35-year-old male as he wishes to find out why his order is late.”

In fact, it may be harder than anthropology because we are looking forward as well as at the present and the past. We also want to know what the preferences will be next year, and in five years. Otherwise, how can we plan ahead? Technology takes time to deploy.

It’s understandable that there is a craving for data on this topic. Every year, many analyst firms and research groups try to illuminate the future with surveys. And one of the most common ways to present results from those surveys is via the cohort chart. It seems to give us the exact answers we need, but can also be misleading.

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Messaging vs Chat vs Texting: Battle for the Future of Customer Service [Live Discussion]

By Shreyasi Dutta on November 1, 2018

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Consumers love to communicate with each other over text channels and, according to recent studies, they are eager to use this mode of communication to interact with businesses. There are three main forms of text-based communication battling for the future: Messaging, chat, and texting.

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[Whitepaper] The New Customer Service Lexicon

By Daniela Puzzo on September 22, 2016

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It’s amazing to observe the rapid changes in the customer service space – the introduction of new channels and new technologies, and the subsequent changes in consumer behavior. With new communication channels appearing and evolving every year, it’s a challenge to understand how they relate to each other, and how they should all work together. New terminology can help our thought processes, if we all agree on the meanings. Conversely, ambiguity about words like “digital” or “chat” makes the navigation harder.

In this whitepaper, we’ll discuss terms that are either new to the customer service sector, or have a recently changed meaning. Hopefully this helps to steer you in the right direction! Continue reading →

The New Customer Service Lexicon, Part 1

By Shai Berger on August 30, 2016

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The world of customer service is ever expanding, making it a complicated and dynamic space to navigate. With new communication channels appearing and evolving every year, it’s a challenge to understand how they relate to each other, and how they should work together. New terminology can help our thought process, if we all agree on the meaning. Conversely, ambiguity about words like “digital” or “chat” or “call” makes the navigation harder.

In this series, we will discuss terms that are either new to the customer service space or have a recently changed meaning. We’re not going to do a simple dictionary-style listing of common terms (you can find that in many other places). We’re just tackling the stuff that is still hot out of the oven! Continue reading →