What is Customer Interaction Management & Why is it Important for Business?

“Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time, or we’ll lose them.” – Kevin Stirz.

In this digital age, where your competitor is just one mouse click away, customers have infinite options to choose from. If they are not happy with the customer service of the current brand they are using, they will switch brands in a heartbeat.

Thus, providing an excellent customer experience is no longer a luxury but a necessity, and brands that fail to prioritize Customer Relationship Management (CIM) are putting their profitability and reputation at risk.

Customer Relationship Management is undeniably a vital building block of management in any organization and should be properly managed and leveraged to yield benefits.

So, without further ado, let us examine customer interaction management and why it is important for business.

What is customer interaction?

A customer interaction refers to any sort of conversation between a business and a customer. These kinds of interactions can be carried out in person, through phones, various digital channels, websites, apps, AI, etc.

Customer interactions can be positive as well as negative, like praise, complaints, inquiries, requests, referrals, and so on. They can also be either proactive or reactive.

For example:

• A customer inquiring about his account balance to a bank assistant.
• A marketing team sending out special offers to regular customers through SMS. 

What is customer interaction management?

Customer interaction management (sometimes also called CIM) is about how a business or an organization handles its conversations with customers across different platforms.

Nowadays, companies deploy multiple customer interaction software and tools to manage customer interactions more effectively. They are mainly employed across departments dealing with customer service and support, sales, marketing, accounts, billing, IT help desks, product management, research and development, and many more.

Since CIM spans across multiple touchpoints and channels such as phone, email, social media, in-person, etc., it ensures much more personalized, seamless, and effective communication at each step of the customer journey.

What is the importance of customer interaction management?

Some important benefits of customer interaction management are as follows:

1. Improve customer experience

When customer interactions are properly managed, agents can answer customer queries more promptly and accurately. This reduces customers’ frustration and stress and increases their trust in businesses. Thus, customers have a more meaningful and quality experience.

2. Build strong customer relationships

When customers have a good experience reacting with businesses, it increases loyalty and trust among the folks. Many stick around and even refer the products and services to new consumers. Thus, an effective customer interaction management yields a strong relationship with the new and potential customers.

3. Reduce churn

Customer interaction management, when done right, reduces churn because CIM addresses customer concerns before they escalate out of control. Retaining old customers as well as new ones directly impacts profitability and growth. 

4. Business growth

Proper CIM implementation significantly reduces operational costs and helps build a strong brand reputation. Excelling in customer interaction gains a reputation for superior service, making brands a preferred choice over their competitors.

5. Employee empowerment

CIM tools provide customer service, sales teams, and contact center agents with all the required and valuable information about their customers in order to handle customer inquiries and issues more effectively and efficiently. 

Thus, when employees are equipped with all the right tools and data, they can perform better, leading to improved customer outcomes and high employee morale.

Where do customer interactions happen?

Customer interaction occurs across multiple platforms and various channels on a daily basis. This is referred to as omnichannel communication. Some key touchpoints used by businesses to interact with their customers are as follows:

1. In-person interactions

Customer interactions do not only mean interacting with the customers through digital mediums like phones and social media apps. It also involves sales staff and customer service representatives approaching the customers, for example, while shopping for clothes and assisting them with their queries.

Face-to-face engagement happens mainly during live events, conferences, trade shows, banking, healthcare, etc.

2. Over the phone

Although many businesses now have opted to contact their customers mainly through online platforms such as apps and websites, not calling customers directly over the phone might be a mistake, given that phones are still a vital part of everybody’s life and internet connections are not reliable all the time.

Customers can either interact with live agents or with automated systems such as AI-powered chatbots and IVR.

3. Over text-based channels

Many businesses opt for Email marketing and SMS marketing to attract more and more customers and reach a wider audience. These text-based channels send precise and more personalized messages to numerous relevant people at the same time.

4. Over live chat

Many businesses and influencers communicate with their customers over live chat services on their websites, allowing customers to be seen and get instant answers.

5. Social media

Small businesses, freelancers, as well as marketing teams of large corporations have begun to use social media platforms to attract more customers as well as handle customers’ queries and responses to their products and services. 

This ensures transparency and sharing of all the common queries means that many people with the same questions get immediate answers.

What prompts customer interactions?

Customer interactions can be reactive as well as proactive, i.e., the interactions are initiated not only by the customers themselves but also by the businesses. 

Let us look at some common types of customer interactions that occur:

1. Customer inquiries 

The most common type of customer interactions that occur are customer queries. Customers may contact businesses to inquire about the pricing, features, specifications, availability, and delivery options before purchasing a product.

Customers may even reach out after the purchase of a product in order to inquire about processing payment issues, or shipping details, or need of technical assistance and troubleshooting with the product and services.

2. Praise and appreciation

Although many customers reach out only to have their issues solved or complain about bad service, some customers reach out to genuinely thank and praise businesses and staff for their services.

Gaining more positive feedback, as well as helpful suggestions from customers increases the Customer Satisfaction score (CSAT) metric and helps businesses improve their products and services.

3. Complaints and grievances

When a customer has a negative experience, such as not receiving assistance while shopping, receiving a faulty product, or unsatisfactory service, they are likely to reach out to the designated agents with their grievances and get their issues addressed. 

Some approach to only vent out their anger, whereas some approach to have their problems resolved.

4. Proactive business reach

Businesses may proactively reach out to their customers for various purposes.

• Industries like healthcare, government organizations, and travel reach out to people in case of crisis and emergency situations like earthquake alerts, flight delay, etc.
• When there is a service disruption, network companies may send out notifications to report network outages.
• Businesses may reach out to their customers, with new offers, subscription plans, or notifications to attract new customers.

5. Follow-up with businesses

Customers may contact businesses to inquire about their loyalty points, reward programs, special offers, and memberships and take an interest in making purchases in response to their advertisements and offers.

They may also follow up to upgrade or cancel their subscription plans, schedule appointments and bookings, renew their warranty, or clarify the terms of a service agreement before signing up.

Most common customer interactions and how to handle

Given that there are numerous types of customer interactions, staff and agents must be well-trained to respond to different kinds of interactions in their own way. Some best practices for handling customer interactions are:

1. Product and service inquiries

To handle any kind of product and service queries, the agent responsible first must have all the necessary information about the product as well the answers to the most common customer queries. The knowledge and insights help answer customer queries more quickly and accurately. 

• Respond quickly to the customers to show that you value their time.
• Ensure that the answers are accurate, short, and easy to understand. 
• Tailor your answers according to the customer’s tone. 
• Invite them to reach out if they have any more queries or need further clarification.

For example, an agent can respond as:

Thank you for calling. The product you have chosen is available in two different colors: black and white. Which one do you prefer? Would you like to perhaps take a look at other similar products?

2. Technical support and troubleshooting

Customers may face problems such as difficulty using software, equipment malfunctions, or configuration issues.

• Agents must thoroughly understand the issue by asking the customers to further clarify the issues if needed. 
• Many customers may lose their demeanor when they are frustrated. Thus, it is important for agents to be highly patient with those customers. 
• Walk the customer through the troubleshooting process in simple terms. 
• If they cannot resolve the problems themselves, then offer to send a tech expert for their assistance.

For example, an agent can say:

I understand how frustrating this must be for you. But let us try troubleshooting this issue together. First, can you try restarting the device and let me know if the problem still persists?

3. Customer complains

Customers complain when their expectations are not met. When dealing with complaining customers, start by acknowledging the customer’s complaint to validate their feelings. Offer a genuine apology, even if the issue wasn’t directly caused by the company. And then you can get into solving their problems.

4. Payment issues

Sometimes, the customers might be overcharged, or there might be some inconsistencies in their bills, such as duplicate charges, or the customers might want to cancel their subscriptions.

• In such cases, before responding to the situation, make sure that you properly check for any errors that may have occurred. 
• If there is, in fact, a billing mistake, acknowledge it and explain to the customers what went wrong. 
• If not, clarify the charges and the reasons behind them.
• Suggest refunds, payment plans, and cancellation options. 
• If the error was caused by the client, explain the steps to be taken to prevent it from happening again.

For example, you might say:

I’ve looked at the bill we sent you, and it does look like there was indeed a duplicate charge. I’ve processed a refund, and you should see it reflected in your account within 3-5 days. I apologize for the confusion.

5. Feedback and suggestions

Customers may reach out to give feedback and suggestions about the products and services.

• During this time, the agents must show appreciation to the customers for taking the time to reach out to them.
• Let them know that their feedback is valuable and will be considered. 
• If the suggestion or feedback is actionable, inform them about the steps you plan to take. 
• Further, encourage them to keep giving feedback and suggestions in the future.

For example, you might say:

Thank you so much for your feedback on our new product. We’re always looking for ways to improve, and your suggestion is something we’ll definitely review with our product team.

6. Appointment scheduling and reminders

• To address issues of appointment and scheduling, make sure the date, time, and location of the appointment are delivered clearly. 
• If their preferred time slot is not available, suggest alternatives. Automate reminders to be sent to the customers to reduce no-shows.

For example, your reminder might read as:

Your appointment at Doctor Cha’s office has been scheduled for 10 AM. Please let me know if you need to reschedule.

Top tips for creating a more positive customer experience

Creating a positive customer experience is highly vital to build strong relationships, increase customer loyalty, and enhance overall brand perception. Thus, here are some useful tips for fostering a better customer experience.

1. Be proactive and anticipate needs

Businesses must engage in proactive interactions with their existing and potential customers in order to learn about the problems before they escalate out of control. They can do so by sending out timely reminders, notifications, and solutions to the problems that others have faced. 

Example: Use notifications and alerts to update customers about shipping delays and service disruptions.

2. Be patient and sympathetic

Customers might lose their cool while talking to customer service agents. However, the agents must be patient and professional while dealing with these customers. Agents must show genuine concern for their needs and problems and address it quickly and promptly.

Example: Instead of offering a scripted apology, acknowledge their specific concerns and emotions and then carry on with the conversation.

3. Offer omnichannel support

Customers might choose to reach out through various platforms such as social media sites, websites, apps, phones, email, SMS, in-person, etc. Whatever medium they choose the customer service representative must be ready to receive them and offer useful assistance.

4. Personalize the experience

Customer service representatives and agents must leverage past interactions, preferences, and purchase history to personalize communications and recommendations. Even considering these small details makes a big difference in the interactions with the customers as customers feel heard and wanted.

5. Empower your support team

To provide a positive customer experience, ensure the customer-facing staff, both online and in-person, have the knowledge, skills, and authority to handle a range of issues and resolve them effectively and efficiently. 

Example: If a customer experiences an issue with a product, allow the support rep to offer a free replacement right away.

6. Use advanced tools and features

Beyond CRM softwares, there are many tools, technologies, and softwares in the market that would significantly boost customer interaction management. It may include chatbots, knowledge bases, self-service portals, social media monitoring tools, customer journey mapping tools, and analytics platforms.

By leveraging these advanced features, you can create a more efficient, personalized, and responsive approach to customer interaction management.

Final Words

In the end, no matter how much time and money you spend on improving your products, services, and strategies, it will bring you no growth in your business until you have strong support and loyalty from your customers. And this can only be achieved if you highly prioritize their needs and experiences.

Thus, effectively and efficiently managing customer interactions is the key to long-term business success.

FAQs

1. What is the difference between CRM and CIM?

The differences between CRM and CIM are as follows:

2. How to manage customer interactions?

Customer interactions can be managed efficiently by delivering timely, personalized, and consistent communication across all channels while actively listening and resolving issues efficiently.

3. What is CIM in management?

CIM in business management refers to customer interaction management, which is the process of deploying tools and customer engagement strategies to manage and optimize real-time interactions with customers across various communication channels. It ensures that the interactions between customers and businesses are handled consistently and efficiently.

4. What are the types of CIM software?

Customer Interaction Management (CIM) software comes in various types to manage customer interactions across different channels. The most commonly used CIM software are as follows:

• Help desk software
• Call center software
• Live chat software
• CRM software
• Social media management software
• Email management software

5. What are the 5 key customer interaction skills?

Customer interaction skills are highly important to carry out effective and meaningful conversations with the customers and create a positive experience for both the agent and the customer. 5 key customer interaction skills are:

• Active listening
• Strong communication skills
• Empathy and understanding
• Quick problem-solving
• A great deal of patience

6. What are the two types of customer interaction?

The two primary types of customer interaction are:

• Synchronous Interactions
• Asynchronous interactions

Synchronous interactions happen in real-time, like phone calls, live chats, and video calls. Asynchronous interactions are delayed, where responses come later, such as emails, support tickets, and SMS.