There’s nothing worse.
You book an entire day off work to receive a delivery. You spend the whole time waiting for the doorbell to ring because you don’t know what time the delivery will arrive. You nip out to the back garden to hang out the washing and find out you missed the delivery when you get back inside.
That might sound like an unlikely occurrence of Murphy’s law but the truth is that the growth of online shopping has more and more customers asking “Where is my order?” – so much so, that the industry has given it its own acronym, WISMO.
And, when they can’t find the answer, the first place they turn is customer service. So even in cases where brands use third party suppliers to ship goods to consumers, it’s still the responsibility of the brand to make sure their customers are informed and happy.
Research carried out by Zendesk found that good customer service outranks convenience and reputation when people are considering which companies to do business with. That means it’s not just the when and where of a delivery, but how you communicate and help the customer be informed that matters. But over the past five years, customer satisfaction is down 2.2 percent, from 94.6 percent in 2013 to 92.5 percent in 2018. Meanwhile, expectations are rising.
The rise of WISMO has the potential to increase the load on your customer service centres and turn waiting customers into angry ones. That doesn’t have to be the case though – here are three top tips businesses should consider to get ahead of WISMO and take control to improve on the delivery experience.
1. Help customers to help themselves
The Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2019 findings show that 40 percent of customers prefer to use search or help centres before contacting support, yet only 20 percent of support teams provide self-service.
Companies can implement self-service tools that allow the customer to get quick and up-to-date information on how the delivery process works, with tools in place to push real-time alerts on delivery status and tracking to the customer. That way, they no longer need to set aside an entire day for a delivery that will take a few seconds to take place. It provides a boost in both convenience and customer satisfaction.
Setting up self-service isn’t a solution that you will implement overnight but the Zendesk customers I speak to tell me it’s worth it. Preparing self-service content enables a business to deeply understand its customers and the way they interact with the business about their questions and concerns.
Done correctly, self-service can speed up the time customers spend looking for answers and, at the same time, free up agent time to add value in areas where they are most needed.
2. Implement intelligence
It’s a big mistake to categorise artificial intelligence (AI) as a technology only seen in sci-fi movies. You also shouldn’t put AI on your ‘future’ list for a solution to implement when you’re flush with cash. The figures speak for themselves.
High performing businesses are twice as likely to use AI. It’s helping companies resolve tickets 21 percent faster, while handling six times the volume of requests. Yet 85 percent of enterprise companies still aren’t using AI.
AI can serve various purposes but if you want to give a better experience for customers waiting for deliveries, one function of AI is to recognise tickets that need urgent attention. Time sensitive questions or messages about an imminent or even late delivery can receive a macro response to both the customer and an agent. This ensures that customers’ needs are being prioritised while the agent is aware of the urgency of the case.
Whatever the channel that the customer uses to get in touch with the company, AI can be incorporated into an omnichannel solution that makes sure customers are dealt with quickly. When they receive the right response in a timeframe that reflects their level of query, it’s more likely to avoid escalated complaints – even if a delivery has been missed or is late.
3. Know that robots can’t do everything
No, this isn’t a direct contradiction to my previous point. No matter how sophisticated AI systems become, there will always be a need for human agents. To ensure that customers are updated on their deliveries, with the necessary customer support, it’s key to make sure human agents are in the best position to pick up more complex cases and be the most helpful.
Nearly half of customers we surveyed (46 percent) said their expectations are higher than they were a year ago. Customers quickly become frustrated when a chatbot can’t answer their detailed questions and if agents aren’t quickly and transparently brought in when needed, it becomes difficult to join the dots that lead to timely deliveries.
The key to the successful hand-off between bots and beings is the right information that prevents customers going right back to the beginning of the process when they pick up the phone or deal with a human agent on chat. No one wants to have to repeat themselves when talking to different parts of the same company.
By the time a human agent is presented with the case, they should have all necessary context – conversational history, product ordered, delivery information, and more. Connecting all this information in one platform – including integration with your order management system – helps ensure that agents have a full understanding of the customer and can manage more complex requests in a timely manner.
It’s important not just to deal with late or missed deliveries, it’s also imperative to counteract the frustration that comes with it. And when customer services start to become more proactive than reactive, with the use of AI, we can reduce the amount of anxiety from WISMO altogether.
At the heart of reaching this goal is an open flexible platform that enables collaboration throughout the business and integration with other stakeholders through APIs and app integrations to enable a complete view across the supply chain.