How can you maintain a human connection with your customers in a world where everything is digital? Well, with all the hype about CRM and automation, it’s easy to question if customer alienation is a result of automation. If you only use CRM, chatbots, and automated communications, you are likely to lose your customers.

In reality, no organization would utilize such a high level of automation because it isn’t what automation or CRM is meant to do. CRM allows customer care representatives and managers to free up time and focus on creating real-time relationships with customers. 

Why is having the ‘human touch’ essential when using a CRM?

The human touch in customer service relates to how customers want to be treated: with compassion, adaptability, and sympathy. Technology is effective, yet it frequently fails on all of these little service levels. According to research, up to 40% of customers express a desire for greater human care and services. And that’s a proven fact!

Maintaining the human touch when using CRM: will it make a difference?

Nowadays, consumers expect more than just a digital experience, and businesses must recognize this. A personal approach, a human touch, and real-world experiences have enormous value. Even the tech behemoths who deal exclusively in digital are aware of this. Using this knowledge to give more value to the customer is both fun and necessary for success.

And so, to differentiate yourself from the competition, you must connect with customers and provide something more. It’s no longer only about who can provide the lowest price; it’s also about who can provide the finest customer service.

How not to lose the human touch in the digital age

Maintain a personal and empathetic tone in your social media communications.

Consumers are aware that they are increasingly speaking with bots or having their data processed by AI, but they don’t want to feel like they are always engaging with a machine. Consumers do not want this. They want to learn about you and get to know who you are. This is why maintaining a personal and human tone in social media communications is essential.

Customer service can be used to learn more about your customers.

Your company’s identity is your customer service department. They’re on the phone with your clients all day, every day. They’ll be in a terrific position to get to know your customers on a more personal level as a result of this. Building a rapport with a consumer can leave them with a great impression of your business: a business that stepped in to help them in a moment of need and did so in a courteous manner. When it comes to their issues or concerns, customers want to be heard and, above all, they want to be regarded as real people with legitimate wants and needs.

Create a blog and update it on a regular basis.

A blog is an excellent way to inform your clients about your company and what you stand for. As a result of your authority and transparency, you will become more accountable to your customers and increase their trust in your brand. It’s also a good idea to include first-person blog postings from personnel within your company, as this gives clients a better understanding of who makes up your company.

Be welcoming towards customers.

Customers expect to be able to contact your business whenever they want and according to their communication preferences in the digital age. With modern digital solutions, you can easily meet this expectation, and it will go a long way toward making you more accessible to your consumers and potential clients. How do you entice customers to participate? 

You make them feel like a member of your brand’s family. If you attend a work social gathering, make a social media post about it. Demonstrate who you are, who your workers are, and why your consumers should like and trust you with their money.

Create lasting memories by creating memorable experiences.

Consumers will hold on to remarkable experiences that are interesting, gratifying, and unique. You want customers to remember their interactions with your firm and think of you first when they require a product that you provide. You must be remembered in order to make that instant link between a product and your brand in a customer’s mind.

You can give customers surprises, make customer service personal and effective, have a unique social media presence, and so on.

Reasons why maintaining the human touch is important

• Your consumers are real people; therefore, you should treat them as such. Humans are hard-wired to seek relationships and meaningful interactions with others, so if you can provide this, you’ll be remembered more.
• 90% of customers stick with companies that share their beliefs.
• Seventy-five percent of customers say that great customer service is one of the reasons they like a brand.

To understand how it works, let’s look at how CRM can help you reintroduce the human touch to customer service below.

Prioritize predictive analytics.

If you don’t apply some type of predictive analytics, your insights will be useless. Predictive analytics can assist you in making accurate sales projections and predicting market trends. This allows you to take your customization to the next level and keep your clients engaged with your brand at all times.

Human employees are incapable of making accurate forecasts, necessitating the use of a CRM that is connected with predictive analytics tools. Your employees will be able to make intuitive and natural human connections when they have interactions and campaigns based on accurate forecasts.

Customize your CRM as needed.

A CRM can assist you in customizing every area of your customer relationship management. Using a CRM allows you to access data that you never thought you’d have access to. A CRM solution is very good at collecting and keeping track of a lot of data from a lot of different sources.

This aids in the analysis of customer data and the customization of marketing campaigns, customer communication, and social media interaction. A tailored strategy is critical to success in today’s world where competition can be fierce and every firm is willing to go to extremes to provide better customer service.

Dedicate more time on building rapport.

A CRM allows you to save time and eliminate manual data entry. This allows your personnel to devote more attention to more time-consuming jobs. They can use this time to build good relationships with customers because CRM helps with a lot of customer relationship tasks.

Conducting live events, making phone calls to find out what clients want, and even connecting and engaging with them on social media without appearing salesy are all examples of this. This is critical for establishing trust and a positive brand image. While your CRM handles all sales-related tasks, your employees can focus on developing meaningful human relationships.

Increase social media engagement.

Modern CRMs can help you better understand your audience by tracking and following them on social media. You don’t have to do all the legwork by following, analyzing, and tracking your consumers’ social media activity. Your CRM can take care of this for you, so your team can focus on social media interaction.

This enables you to have real-time, honest interactions with your customers, resulting in improved engagement KPIs. Getting to know your followers on social media in a genuine and sincere way has been shown to help sales and the way people think about your business, too.

Improve client understanding.

The cornerstone of a company’s success is insight-driven customer relationship management. According to studies, most organizations strategize without relying on correct data. Customers are not all the same, and their interests, demographics, and behavioral characteristics vary greatly.

A CRM can help you comprehend and contextualize all of these variances, allowing you to gain more knowledge. You may plan your customer service strategy to enhance your customer satisfaction KPIs with better insight.

Resolving problems in a timely manner.

When you look at how businesses are assessed online, you’ll notice that it all comes down to how quickly they are able to settle client complaints. Businesses may feel overwhelmed and give up when customer complaints pile up on social media and elsewhere. They’ve even stopped responding to unfavorable online reviews. In the long run, this harms their reputation.

A customer relationship management system can assist firms in quickly resolving complaints and improving their internet evaluations. This helps businesses improve their brand image and overall ratings on social media and other platforms by making them more appealing.

Final Thoughts

CRM relieves your employees of some of their responsibilities. Customer alienation is unavoidable if you rely solely on automation and CRM. CRM, on the other hand, should be used to relieve your customer service team of their responsibilities so that they can focus on building meaningful relationships with clients.

Your employees will be able to modify messages and interactions with customers with more data in their arsenal. They will also be able to respond to client issues more swiftly and reduce the quantity of social media complaints. CRM allows businesses to predict customer outcomes and make policy changes to make sure they have good customer interactions.

Finally, CRM frees up time for your employees, allowing them to have more empathic and authentic conversations with customers.

FAQs

Why is it necessary to give a personal touch in customer service?

Humans desire to be respected and understood. Therefore, empathic communication and active listening can boost client satisfaction. When it comes to data collection, internet services are efficient and beneficial, but live agent customer service still stands out.

Why is personal interaction such a crucial aspect of customer service?

Customer success’s performance is dependent on its personal connection. In reality, customers are more likely to contemplate a repurchase when they have a personal connection to the brand. Personal, meaningful, and timely human connections are always the best for customer success.

Martin Gessner

Martin Gessner is the Founder of Focus on Force.

He has spent over 10 years working in various Salesforce roles including business analyst, project manager, consultant and solutions architect. Along the way he has earned twelve certifications, published "The Salesforce Career Playbook", and helps Salesforce professionals learn more about Salesforce, develop their career and prepare for certifications.