Five Great TakeAways from Our Interview with Tricia Morris of Parature

The funny thing about social media is you engage and connect with people for years and never hear their voice, or see that as real people. They’re just a Twitter handle or a headshot. Tricia Morris from Parature of Microsoft was one of those people. We both have a love for customer service, we both have gotten some recognition for our efforts and we each share similar content. She does some great work on the Parature blog.

She was one of the first people I thought of to interview when I launched my Upsell Podcast and I’m honoured she said yes. (I sound like I’m getting married)

Here are five great take aways from our interview:

1. Customer Expectations of Service will Continue to Rise – Companies, brands and organizations are making grand promises around exceptional customer experiences and customers expect them to deliver. As customers continue to have access to better and better technology and more accessibility with businesses, they want each of those interactions to be satisfying. Most times it’s not. Parature just finished their 2^nd multi-channel survey and customer expectations are up from last another 3% and it’s not slowing down.
2. Authentic Customer Service defined – It’s customer service representatives that are empowered to be themselves and to provide you with the best customer experience, even if it takes a little bit longer or even if they need to do a little bit extra. The brand and the person really shows through.
3. Self-Service Might be the Answer – Valuing your customer’s time is the greatest aspect of a good customer service experience. If customers can find what they’re looking for without having to speak to someone, it gives them a great feeling of empowerment, satisfaction, and they want to use it again every single time. It can also help with that growing expectation customers have around service experience as they aren’t relying on an agent but really can address themselves.
4. Big Opportunity for Businesses Right Now – Omni-channel customer service. Creating that seamless service across channels. Though lot of companies are starting to do multi-channel customer service well, where they offer customer service on three to five customer service channels, omni-channel provides that unified experience. That will probably be the next big differentiator for brands.
5. We’re all Human – customer service is a really tough job and that agents don’t enough credit for what they do and sometimes they’re not empowered to do their job. As customers, sometimes we have to put ourselves in their shoes and vice versa. Coming back to that human element, if you can do that and put an authentic voice into your customer service and just put your passion behind it, that will make a world of difference.

Bonus:

• She amazingly recommends more people check out the movie Prometheus. As a self-proclaimed “sci-fi” nerd, Tricia thought Ripley Scott’s film is underrated. (this may be the only thing Tricia and I disagreed with)

A HUGE thanks to Tricia for taking the time to share her customer service insights with us. If you’d like to keep up with her, you can find her on Twitter at @DessertContent or @Parature, and read her latest blog on the Parature website.

Find the podcast at The Upsell Podcast