Technology To Improve Customer Service With 4 Ideas | Small ...

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Technology has rapidly picked up pace in terms of evolutions it has made.

How can SMB owners harness this technology to improve customer service?

Can you imagine going to a restaurant and seeing waitresses with tablets in their arms to take our orders to send those orders to the cooks in back? It happens!

So today, we are covering 4 tips that uses technology to improve customer experiences. And I assure you these ideas are most certainly cost effective ones that will leave a better impression on your customers.

1.) Automated Hold Queues With Customized Features

During my time working customer support on the business side of a VoIP company, there were a few features I quite appreciated and promoted working there. One of them was the ability to customize those hold queues customers hear.

You could change things like what customers initially hear, what they hear in intervals, what music they were hearing while on hold, how calls sought out the next available line automatically.

All of this technology to improve customer service at a low price!

We?re done with the days of not communicating with our customers ?hey, we?re pretty backed up and sorry for the wait?. We?re also done with the days of sending customers straight to voicemail.

2.) ?Loyalty Cards? As Mobile Apps

You know those cards where its like buy ten sandwiches and get the next one free with those cards you stamp off? I have a terrible time to remembering to pull those out even if they are right in my wallet.

But I always have my smartphone out! If you deal with loyalty cards, why not try a mobile app version?

One example is Loyalli. Loyalli comes in both iOS and Android versions.

As a retailer it?s free to join up to this site. Be sure to check out the video on the front page to see how it works, it?s actually pretty neat how they do it. This application is a great way to use technology to improve customer service.

3.) Easy Payment Options Have Increased

Not everyone feels comfortable bringing cash around. Some businesses have actually lost my business because they had no way to take my card instead, just because I don?t want to bring cash in my wallet.

But there are some awesome new ways for people to take payments without forcing upon your customer to pay cash only.

For one thing, smartphone users can use applications such as Square and Paypal Here using a free credit card reader that plugs into the headphone jack on the phone or tablet. Payments are processed and deposited into your bank account in about 1 business day.

There?s no waste of paper. The signature can be done right on the device and if the customer desires, have the receipt emailed to them.

There are people like me who actually appreciate the small businesses who have these options instead of telling us they only take cash.

4.) Self-Help Is Efficient Help

As a consumer, I appreciate being able to do a few things things on my own. Like self check-out lines at the grocery store, or websites that I can make an online order for some delivery from the local pizza restaurant.

Do-it-yourself options are fascinating to customers and it gets their attention.

I?ve been in to select Jack in the Box restaurants where while they have a manned register, they also have self-service kiosks where I can customize my order without having to tell anyone. You get it the way you want it thanks to that technology.

Technology To Improve Customer Service Is The Way Of The Future

These are just a few ways to use technology to improve customer service.

I?m positive I am not the only one out there who feels things like this will not only make for a better experience visiting your business, but most certainly will bring us back thanks to these options.

Are you using technology to improve customer service in your business? Which ways have you implemented or thinking of implementing in the future? Let us know your thoughts!

Tags: improve customer service, smb technology, technology and customer service, technology for SMBs, technology to improve customer service

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2012 at 3:22 PM and is filed under management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://www.infinitechusa.net/blog/2012/08/16/technology-to-improve-customer-service/

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