Today, it seems like technology is improving every aspect of life in some way. Customer service in retail is no exception, which is clearly very important to the firms. After all, it affects how the buying public perceives them; determining whether they’re a friendly, approachable or even competent business.
In many ways, a retail business’s success depends on quality customer service! Of course, this is good news, as seemingly every shop out there is experiencing great difficulties lately. A win is most definitely needed!
But how is technology improving things here? Well, here’s a few ideas as to how it is making things better in this industry!
Websites, bots and AI
Obviously, nearly every business today has a company website. However, what’s interesting here is how these websites have developed over the years. They used to feature standard, tabs explaining the conception of the business and its objectives, in addition to buyer and delivery pages. However, these days they offer so much more, especially in retail!
Bots and artificial intelligence now have a presence on company sights too, further improving customer service. They handle the more trivial questions that are easily answerable, saving the time of staff members who can instead tend to more pressing customer concerns. Moreover, it’s beneficial for the customer too – gone are the waiting times for their issues to be addressed. When they visit the website, a popup will immediately come up, which means they can direct their questions and concerns there at any time.
They can also subscribe to newsletters from here and stay updated via email on all the latest promotions and offers their favourite retail brands have to offer. Ultimately, the shopping experience has never been so readily able to attend to everyone’s needs!
Smartphone apps
The arrival of the smartphone also saw the introduction of apps too. It’s a fast lane to a company’s website that can be accessed via a mobile phone, which means customers no longer need to worry about finding a computer, remembering individual URLs or favouriting certain sites. Once they’ve downloaded the app, they have a hotline straight to their favourite retail business.
Apps can also remember a customer’s payment, delivery and login information too, which eliminates the hassle of repetitively entering and re-entering their details. This greatly refines what customer service is capable of, because, now it’s simply instantaneous in nearly all of its forms wherever technology is concerned!
Expert advice
Before the arrival of technology, all businesses used to be rather solitary in their operations. It all came down to what happened in store, but obviously today, things are different. The retail industry is so much vaster and more complex, and if the firms themselves don’t keep up, they’ll fall way, way behind.
However, it’s not only the customers who get more help these days, as companies like DWF are ever keen to provide expert advice to retail firms. From lawful regulations to ironing out company-wide logistics in app and website development, such firms help those in retail create opportunities and reach their commercial objectives. It simplifies everything, and ultimately saves retail firms a great deal of time and money. The trial and error processes are removed, and now businesses can simply get on the right path sooner instead.
Conclusion
Customer service has gone digital and has greatly reduced the time both customers and businesses need to get their affairs in order. Everything today is done at the click of a button or a swipe of a screen, keeping everyone on both sides of the transaction satisfied and happy. What could be better?
