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🤠 Hey, Hey, Howdy! 🤠

Hi friends! I’ve had a pretty quiet week (knock on wood!) and I finally have a couch for my new home. Things aren’t slow for long in the CX world of course because gorgias’ CX Connect is next month in Los Angeles!! I better see you there. 🤩

In Inevitable Agency news, we’re big on #WellnessWednesday and we want to know how well you know the team! Check It out on our LinkedIn 😜👇

TTYL!!! 😘

📷️ Digital Experience News 📷️

Let’s talk about cohesive messaging. 

It is great (say it with me, G-R-E-A-T) to be inclusive in your brand messaging. In fact, it should be the standard! However, using inclusivity in your advertising only goes so far. It also has to translate to your actual customer experience. After all, your customers are the ones being included. 

Paralympic athlete Stef Reid has one foot. Nike has mannequins in their stores that feature athletes with one foot and a running blade. This would lead people to believe that they sell single shoes in order to accommodate the one-footed runners that they are clearly acknowledging, right? 

runjumpstefreid

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Unfortunately, that is not the case. When Reid reached out to Nike asking if she could buy one shoe, she was told the best they could offer her is a 15% discount. Now, I am no math wiz, but that still leaves her paying for 35% of a product that she can’t use. 

If Nike is going to cater their advertising to Paralympic athletes, then they should also cater their product to Paralympic athletes. Otherwise, it just feels disingenuous. 

You never want your brand to feel inauthentic. If you are going to show that you support a cause, then you have to actually support said cause. Otherwise, it’s just audience experience and not customer experience. 

Customers should feel supported all the way through their journey with your company. It’s great to see an inclusive advertisement, but it’s even better to actually be included. No one wants to feel like a marketing pawn. 

It’s important to support the people who are actually buying from you. Just do it! ✔️

Help Yo Self

Self-help – no not your typical “wake up at 5am and drink a glass of water” self-help books, but the real deal, where your customers are able to get their questions answered without even interacting with an agent. But here's the trick: we want to make sure customers can fix things themselves without feeling lost or frustrated because you couldn't reach a real person.

A new survey shows that only 1 and 5 customers find self-help to be sufficient. Only 20% of customers? Interesting! How do you find that delicate balance between empowering customers and not leaving them stranded in a digital desert? That's the big question. We're talking about providing support that's easy to navigate and actually helpful. Think chat support that feels like a cozy convo with a friend, FAQs that actually answer questions, and help centers that actually…. wait for It…. HELP.

Here’s a few places to start:

• Support Customer Journey Audit: have someone outside of your organization go through the customer journey, purchase and all, and see if they can get their questions answered

• Evaluate FAQs: How often are you checking your FAQs? Are they outdated? Do you ever look at your most commonly searched terms on Shopify? Make sure all answers match up to the current process and that your search bar takes customers to what they’re looking for!

• Monitor Chatbot: are most of your chats converting into billed tickets? Maybe your chat isn’t optimized for the questions your customers are actually asking. There’s nothing more annoying than asking for order status and getting an article about where the products are shipped. NO that did not answer my question!!

• Order Status: How many of your tickets are asking where there order is? With a simple CX flow or landing page, you can allow customers to track their own orders fast and reduce incoming tickets.

But wait, there's more! Picture this: it's the holiday chaos and if one more person asks what the Black Friday discount code is your CS agent might scream. Fear not! With a dash of anticipatory customer service, you're already ahead of the game. Consider having a customized flows for BIG holidays or major sales, the times when the most tickets are coming through. I think this will be a big CX trend for the 2024 holidays, you heard It here first!

Now, let's talk money. Sure, self-service support can save you a pretty penny in the short term, but if it's not hitting the mark with your customers, it could come back to bite you in the long run. So, ditch the canned responses and sprinkle in some personalization for that extra human touch. And remember, finding the right balance is an ongoing journey – keep your finger on the pulse by evaluating your flows and chat conversations regularly is the way to keep those customers happy and returning.

Oh, and one last thing, in a world where AI reigns supreme, there's still something special about talking to a real-life human being. So, while self-help is great and all, never underestimate the power of offering a friendly face on the other end of the line. After all, behind every support ticket is a real person with a real problem – and sometimes, all they need is a little human connection to save the day. 💗

🎙️ LET’S LAUGH ABOUT IT 🎙️

CX Job Board 👩‍💻

Here are some jobs in CX we found this week. If you or your company is hiring, let us know and we can add It next week!

• Koala is looking for an experience CX manager to join their US team! If you are interested, please reach out to us at [email protected] for more info

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