Consumer Day can be celebrated this week, but the SAC still causes shivers, despite the evolution, in those who need the service
Consumer Day, celebrated this Wednesday (15), should be a particularly different date for retail this year, as recent events have shaken the segment in recent months, such as the crisis at Lojas Americanas, Tok&Stok and Centauro, among others. . It is true that the consumer has changed face in recent years, even before the pandemic, an event that accelerated the process of changing the advance of e-commerce. Of course, chain stores had to invest in digital to meet demand. After the great health crisis, things did not go back to the places they used to be. He enjoyed the experience of shopping without leaving his seat.
But, sometimes, companies take the consumer’s peace of mind, when he needs to complain or settle a simple doubt and needs to face that three-letter department, the famous SAC (Consumer Service), which gives even goosebumps just talking about it. The brands have advanced a lot in this regard, but they still have a lot to do. For Tatiana Thomaz, ESPM graduate professor, companies really need to put the consumer at the center of their strategies, focusing on the customer’s experience. She experiences the perception caused by the different interactions that the consumer has with the channels (physical and digital), devices, employees, products, packaging and other points of contact with the brand, in all stages of their journey, she comments.
It seems that hitting the same button has not helped much, however, the teacher says that, in order to serve the consumer correctly and take care of their experience with the brand, it is fundamental to carry out the mapping of their journey, as well as the emotions felt during this journey. . This mapping serves to understand each consumer’s point of contact with your brand and it is possible to understand where consumers’ emotions are positive and where they are negative, indicating points for improvement or areas of opportunity, advises Tatiana.
For Celso Andrade, CEO of UOTZ, the company must pay the utmost attention to all the processes that involve the consumer’s journey – from the moment he learns about the product or service to his loyalty, including leaving. A customer, for example, who finds it difficult to stop subscribing to a service, in addition to never reconsidering his decision, will actively testify against the company.
Marketing digital
Thiago Pereira, head of business development & innovation at MacFor, goes further and states that, when we talk about digital marketing, the user experience is the main point of attention that brands should have. This ranges from site design to ease of use and navigability – does it easily find everything you need? -, but, mainly, the check-out process, that is, the path that the consumer takes until the completion of the purchase, he reports.
In his opinion, customer service is also a differential and has a direct connection with how customers feel cared for. For Pereira, other issues that can show care for the consumer are personalization, that is, what products can you recommend to your client that are, in fact, relevant to him?; transparency, that is, making information about prices, delivery times and return policies clear; ask for and listen to feedback. When we talk about retail, some items stand out in terms of consumer preference. According to an excerpt taken from the Macfor study, based on a survey by Allin with Social Miner, in 2022, 62% of orders placed on Consumer Day had free shipping. Depending on the cost of shipping, 58% of consumers may give up the purchase, he says, adding: Another point is the method of payment. On Consumer Day in 2022, 62.27% used a credit card, which is often preferred due to the possibility of paying in installments over several months or being able to pay at the end of the month, and 36.42% preferred to pay by bank slip, which can be caused by the store offering discounts, not forgetting the PIX, which stands out for its ease of payment.
Edu Cabral, strategy director at WMcCann, believes that, before any characteristic, the final product or service must genuinely meet the expectations that it provoked in the consumer. According to him, converting the audience into a customer is not only a process of enchantment, it is, at the end of the day, to solve a pain in that person’s life, always valuing the quality and transparency of what is being delivered. I believe this is the ultimate sign of respect between the brand and the consumer, he points out.
Renata Antunes, partner and creative director of the 11:11 agency, says that, for her, transparency and coherence in positioning are basic points for any care, be it for the consumer or for the corporate culture. There is no more room for a litany in the speech. The advertiser must be sharp in what he delivers. When the speech is true and innovative, the consumer leaves with a positive view, and the chance of him returning is infinitely greater, she believes.
Marcelo Rullo, head of planning and content at Oliver Latin America, observes that the first point is to understand that customer service via social networks is different from the service that the brand usually has internally, such as email, telephone and apps. When the consumer connects with a brand through the networks, whether through an Instagram DM, in a comment on the post or in a Twitter thread, the SLA expectation of a much lower response, as well as the expectation of a more personalized and intimate service. . This needs to be very clear in any care planning, he suggests. For him, from then on, it is important to have a very well-structured FAQ and a well-trained team so that the maximum service is provided in the first instance, that is, without having to involve many areas internally. The more qualified the team is to understand who their consumer is, how they speak and, mainly, how they expect to be served, the better, he argues.
Companies can be a bit confused to identify where their customer service is lacking. For this reason, the ESPM professor rescues what Philip Kotler already said: the cost of attracting new customers is five to seven times greater than the cost of maintaining existing ones, which is why it is so important to take care of the customer and provide a good experience. , a frictionless journey. She raises the Salesforce study, State of the connected customer 5th edition, to illustrate her thinking, according to which 88% of customers said that the shopping experience is as important or more important than the product or service that is purchased, that is, It is vital that brands provide a good experience to their consumers.
There are several ways to map and identify where the consumer experience is bad, ranging from already established metrics such as, for example, NPS, CSAT and CES, to market research and monitoring of unstructured data, such as complaint sites and networks. social. And this journey has to be thought of as a CX ecosystem, as a chain, where employees, different partners and suppliers form the links in this chain, which can impact the customer positively or negatively, he analyzes.
Contact point
Celso Andrade believes that advertisers can detect where they are not doing very well by defining KPIs, at each point of contact in the physical, digital or physical journey. And, through perceived deviations, we can act quickly to mitigate problems for the consumer, and consequently for the company, he guarantees.
Thiago Pereira, on the other hand, says that Macfor has a team of engineers and analysts who work with a focus on tagging the pages of the client’s website to understand consumer behavior. Thus, the user’s navigation and the actions he takes on the site are mapped and we are able to understand, for example, if this user starts the purchase process and stops somewhere. From this data collection, we take insights into the points that may be bad and we do AB testing to verify these hypotheses, he says.
Edu Cabral says he is a fan of data when it comes to identifying where the brand is going wrong with the consumer. For him, research, experience, evaluations and feedback are extremely important for the company to remain allied with reality. Relying on the consumer’s opinion really helps in the process of identifying what works and what needs improvement.
Renata Antunes says that you don’t need to go far to detect if the SAC is bad. For her, the experience is linked to the contact or perception that the consumer has of the brand. And, from there, the consumer today can express himself through countless channels: through the brands’ social networks, through the SAC and, of course, through the oldest of all, the sales numbers. Furthermore, for those of us who work with creativity, there is still intuition and experience in the market. This is the intersection we believe in. We closely monitor this perception and, if we detect any failure, we quickly change the course of the strategy.
Marcelo Rullo states that listening and service reports are essential to identify failures in customer service (whether in terms of product, communication or service itself). It is through them that we are able to understand, in a very detailed way, where we have weaknesses and how we can act, he reveals.
Tatiana Thomaz once again resorts to studies to guide how brands should act when it comes to the best way to serve the consumer, since most get chills just thinking about contacting the blessed SAC and its eternal and addicted lines. The professor says that there is a Zendesk study, Trends 2022, which shows the disparity in the perceptions of companies X consumers in relation to customer service. According to her, while 72% of companies surveyed say that in their organization customer service is a key business priority, 68% of customers say that it seems most companies need to improve training of their customer service agents.
There are a number of factors for this. From undersized, poorly trained teams, poorly designed processes to an issue that in my view is still far from being resolved, which is the balance between artificial intelligence and human service, skyrockets.
Read the full story in the March 13, 2023 issue
