These days, customers expect more than just a quick response when they seek customer service. They expect businesses to meet them where they are and have immediate answers to their issues. The trouble with that is the fact that the average business runs as lean as possible and simply can't justify a massive full-time staff of customer service specialists. Those two realities mean that customer expectations are higher than ever while the resources businesses dedicate to meeting them continue to dwindle. Is it any wonder, then, that average customer service ratings are lower today than at any point in recent history?

The thing is, however, that businesses can make smart investments that will improve their customer service capabilities without increasing headcounts. The trick is to use tools and technologies that act as force multipliers. On one end of the customer service operational spectrum, they can leverage AI tools that place relevant information in the hands of customer service staff while they work to serve customers. On the other, they can centralize multichannel communications to allow fewer workers to cover more incoming requests and make plans to handle channel-specific customer service requests. Here are three of the best ways businesses can accomplish those aims.

Leverage AI-Powered Self-Service Options

For the average customer, the best customer service interaction is one that solves their problem in the shortest possible amount of time. This is a big reason why an estimated 69% of consumers don't mind talking to a chatbot, so long as it answers their questions quickly. For businesses, that's a pretty powerful reason to invest in AI-powered self-service options. For one thing, a well-designed chatbot can dramatically decrease the time it takes for a customer to get the answers they seek. For another, every customer query handled by a chatbot is one that the business's human staff doesn't have to deal with.

On top of those benefits, solutions like chatbots can also become a customer service goldmine for businesses. By collecting and analyzing interaction data from a chatbot, businesses can spot common customer issues and craft solutions to them to minimize the need for lengthy interactions with a live agent. Plus, the data can also help businesses keep tabs on customer sentiment and preferences to inform ongoing training for customer service representatives. After all, nothing improves customer service scores like agents who know what customers want even before they ask.

Deploy an Omnichannel Communications Solution

The most important thing that businesses can do to put their customer service teams in a position to succeed is to select and deploy an omnichannel communications solution. Such platforms bring every customer service touchpoint together into a single coherent interface to facilitate smoother and more effective customer communications. This is an excellent way to eliminate the boundaries within customer service departments that often lead to unnecessary handoffs between teams.

For example, if a customer calls a support line and requests updates on their case via SMS or another communication method, a single team member can manage the case from beginning to end with no hand-offs. Plus, the best omnichannel software solutions include centralized interaction databases that give representatives a complete picture of a case's communications at a glance. This prevents customers from having to repeat previously provided information, which is a major customer service pain point.

Some omnichannel solutions, like the one offered by leading firm Glassix, even utilize AI to put previously discussed information in the hands of agents. It uses an AI-powered unified inbox that creates automated summaries of conversations and auto-tags them based on subject matter and other content. That way, an agent immediately sees every relevant part of subsequent case discussions so the customer doesn't have to waste time getting them up to speed.

Centralize Social Media Management

Although most businesses don't use their social media channels for customer service purposes, that doesn't stop their customers from flocking to those platforms when they want attention. That creates a rather thorny problem for businesses. Since those interactions are public, they can create a negative brand impression if handled improperly. It matters little if a business solves a customer's problem after a poor public showing, though, because only they and the customer themselves will know about it.

That reality makes centralizing the management of all of a business's social media important, as is looping in customer service personnel in the task. There are a variety of ways to manage all social media in one place, making the first part of that imperative easy to accomplish. Using a single management platform eliminates the possibility that a customer with a complaint slips through the cracks. However, social media managers alone can't be relied upon to solve customer issues or even to know how to handle a customer service interaction satisfactorily.

For that reason, it's critical to develop a customer service playbook for social media channels that adheres to the accepted best practices for the job. Furthermore, it's necessary to designate specific customer service personnel to handle social media help requests and to give them additional public relations training to improve results. That can help turn what could be a string of public customer service black eyes into an opportunity to burnish the business's brand reputation.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, excellent customer service means answering requests immediately and having the right answers close at hand at all times. By using the right tools, technologies, and approaches, it's possible to do this without massively increasing spending at the same time. The three suggestions here offer a smart roadmap that any business can follow to level up its customer service operations and achieve positive results. Then, everything else is a simple matter of attention to detail and execution.