Over the past decade, and even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic, the payments industry has been redefined by digital tools and features, ranging from one-click payments to digital wallets.
While these new capabilities enhance customers’ access and enable companies to conduct business with ease, it’s important to acknowledge the shift in the customer experience. Customer interactions with companies are shorter and often conducted without interacting with another human. Customers’ familiarity and expectations for digital service have risen but has customer service strategy adapted to this new playing field?
Customer experience in the payments industry is built on speed and efficiency and trust, none of which can be achieved without proactivity and personalization. In an increasingly digital industry, impactful customer service requires knowing when and how to insert the human touch to the experience as needed.
A majority of the time, customers will process payments quickly and not need (or want) human interaction. However, the transactions that don’t go smoothly (i.e. when they need customer service) are opportunities where a little personalization goes a long way and a little proactivity could prevent the issue in the future.
Here are five proactive steps to offering a personalized customer experience:
Monitor customer habits. A result of the widespread adaptation of digital platforms and resources is that customers assume their habits and preferences are known. In order to meet this expectation, companies must be invested in gathering feedback at every step possible. Utilizing a customer relationship management (CRM) is crucial for gathering customer details and recording interactions. By providing customer representatives with in-depth knowledge of customers’ past requests and questions, they are better equipped to offer personalized responses and solutions.
Anticipate customer needs. Knowing your customers’ interaction history, provides a golden opportunity to improve the customer experience by anticipating their future requests and needs. This proactive attention will help solve issues before they are flagged by customers - offering a positive experience before there is even a negative reason to reach out.
Match customer preferences. The payments industry reaches customers across platforms. Therefore, it’s imperative they are able to provide customer services across digital channels, including online messaging platforms, social media, chatbots, and apps. By implementing an omni-channel customer service strategy, payments companies can meet customers on the platforms they use most, ensuring that every interaction begins on the right foot.
Empower customer representatives. Providing customer service representatives with the power to make decisions and provide solutions (without jumping through internal hoops) enables faster service, but also gives the customer a sense that they are speaking with someone of authority. This direct communication reinforces customers’ trust in the customer service team and thus the company as a whole.
Offer a human voice: Digital tools can’t fully replace the personal connection and empathy that’s required for customer service. While chatbots and AI messaging tools are effective for standard requests, it’s important companies know when those tools are insufficient and a real human representative is required.
Language analysis tools should be used to flag customer requests that require a customer representative to intervene and offer a personalized and empathetic response. By training customer service representatives to respond to these situations, companies can feel comfortable and confident that their customer service teams are providing the most impactful service.
