While it’s important to know how satisfied customers are with the support offered, ascertaining how easy it is for customers to solve problems is a complementary metric.
Regardless of the issue, whether simple or complex, a financial institution should strive to make the payment and customer journey effortless.
Knowing how much effort it takes for customers to solve issues can bring pain points to light and show supervisors where tools and workflows can be improved. For example, is the interactive voice response (IVR) missing an option to respond to a common request (i.e., order new checks)? Instead of having to contact a general help phone number, the IVR could lead to a fast and easy self-service solution or offer the option to route the customer to agents specialized in supporting that request.
Customer Effort Score (CES) surveys should be used to obtain feedback on the customer support experience overall. Depending on the channel utilized, a customer can have different experiences and CES results can illuminate areas for improvement, such as improved in-app contact options or better chat functions.
Customers today communicate visually and contextually and almost always use multiple channels to do so. Creating a streamlined and efficient experience across all communication channels is essential to keep customers satisfied and loyal.
Based on that data, supervisors have the opportunity to drill down into specific issues to learn why it is taking so much effort to solve the problem. Of course, the end goal is to have every customer respond that it was very easy to solve their problem. The solution might not be speaking to an agent, but getting the answer from a self-serve option.
Supervisors should determine which survey type they want customers to complete based on what they want to know. Multiple post-interaction surveys are a bad idea. A survey should be sent for all types of support calls from simple requests to complex and detailed support issues.
It may be useful to use the CES survey for complex issues and customer satisfaction (CSAT) for more general requests. Both surveys have the potential to provide valuable data that can be used to improve a brand’s customer support strategy.
Customer feedback is invaluable in finding possible frustration points in the support journey, and CSAT and CES surveys are important tools for gathering feedback around every interaction. Making the customer support experience as effortless as possible can help brands to build and maintain customer loyalty. Loyal customers buy more, and your bottom line grows.
