Foster Customer Relationships with Asynchronous Communication

It’s undeniable that customer expectations have changed. Short form, long-lived, text-based, asynchronous messaging now dominates modern interpersonal communications. Whether you’re scheduling an appointment via text message or asking a company for product specs via messenger, the shift to using a communication format that doesn’t require an immediate response is growing. In fact, Gartner estimates that, by 2019, support requests made through consumer messaging apps will surpass those made via social media.

Contemporary Consumer Contact

People are busy; and as modern customers move through their lives, they don’t want to be tied to outdated, synchronous communication. They don’t have time for a two-hour phone call about your product or service. They want to ask questions and move on to other tasks while they wait for an answer. You can even see this embrace of asynchronous communication in historically personal social interactions, like the world of online dating.

In this world, users create profiles, send messages to people they are interested in and go about their lives in the interim. Even after communication is established, you may not meet the other person right away. A month or two of back-and-forth messaging can take the blindness out of dating. Even when searching for a soulmate, consumers want convenience.

Peacocking with Asynchronous Communication

To truly set apart your customer experience, conversations with your brand must be as intuitive and natural as the conversations we have with each other. This means you must meet your customers on their own turf. And as Huffington Post reports, messaging is now the number one method people use to communicate with each other. Consequently, that’s the landscape you must navigate.

The beauty (and occasional challenge) of asynchronous communication is that interactions can span across days, or even weeks. Prospects have time to consider their options without feeling pressured to buy right away. Customers control the timeline when they have an issue, which takes the onus off the business. And this lessens the burden on contact center staff; they can work on current issues, as opposed to spending hours following up on past problems.

If it’s as difficult to excel at customer communication as it is to stand out in the sea of Match® profiles, this is your bright blue fedora. Streamline the customer journey by ensuring that context is carried throughout the whole process. Leverage new technologies, like Artificial Intelligence (AI) or assisted service, to enrich the customer experience. A reputation of excellent service will make you stand out.

It’s Time for Happily Ever After

Plan your communication with the desired result in mind to achieve your customer experience goals and to set yourself apart from competitors. As technology continues to evolve, customers will always want convenience. Today, that convenience comes from the ease and usability of asynchronous communication. Keeping customer preferences at the forefront is the key to ensure a lasting and fruitful relationship.

With Genesys, you can integrate native messaging apps and combine asynchronous conversation models, automation, AI, and assisted services. This enables you to deliver effortless and intuitive conversations that will differentiate your brand experience across the entire customer lifecycle. To learn more about using asynchronous messaging, download our eBook.

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