The Age of Instant Gratification: How to Manage Customer Service Expectations

Instant gratification, the desire to experience fulfillment without delay, has taken hold of our 21st-century expectations and shows no sign of easing its grip. We want what want, and we want it now.

We've traded Blockbuster and DVDs for instant streaming through Netflix and Hulu — why wait a moment longer to watch your show when you can binge watch it right now? We've traded the art of communicating with others for a quick scroll down their Instagram timeline. We've traded walking the aisles of the grocery store for grabbing curbside pickup instantly and heading home to get back on Netflix and Instagram.

Our society has forgotten what it feels like to wait for something. Follow the tips below to enhance customer satisfaction in the age of dying patience.

Make Mobile Seamless and Hassle Free

Approximately 95 percent of Americans have cell phones, and on average, we're checking them 80 times a day. If we went to your website right now, how easy would it be for us to call you immediately? Would we have to search for your phone number? Would we have to type it out on those tiny smartphone buttons?

Regardless of the size of your company, it's more important than ever that you make the mobile experience as seamless as possible. Consider implementing clickable numbers that will let prospects instantly call you with the click of a button. Now your competition will be frustrated instead of your customers.

Contact Leads Quickly

A study from MIT found that if a rep waits 30 minutes to call a prospect who submitted a web page form, the rep is 100 times less likely to make contact. If the rep waits five hours, the odds drop by 3,000 times. The longer your staff waits to get in contact with prospects, the more potential sales you're losing out on.

How can you ensure your staff isn't missing inquiries from interested customers? Should you just make them hit refresh on their emails every 30 seconds? We don't think so! There a much easier answer to end this problem: a solution that empowers your employees to respond to webs form submissions in a timely manner. When a prospect submits a form, the application calls the next available rep in a round robin rotation to guarantee the lead is contacted. Once an agent is reached, text-to-speech technology converts the text of the web submission into a recording. After listening to the recordings, the rep can then place a call to the customer. This saves your reps the hassle and wasted time of digging through emails to respond to potential leads.

Make the Purchasing Process Easy

Back in 2000, the process of buying an item online was as follows: Take an absurd amount of time out of your day to connect to the internet through dial-up. Once it finally connects, access your favorite retailer’s website and check out with shipping options (like seven business days at the earliest for around $10). Patiently wait a week or longer for the item to arrive.

The process of buying an item online in 2018 is as follows: Simply pull out your smartphone, search for an item on Amazon, check out via your Prime account for free shipping and find it on your doorstep within 48 hours — sometimes even sooner.

Whether or not you’re in the retail biz, customers’ experiences with retailers shape how they view their experiences with other companies. Your customers expect a high-speed quality service experience. If they’re ready to sign the dotted line and give you their money, give them your full attention and do everything in your power to close the sale ASAP.

What steps have you taken to satisfy the demanding expectations of today’s customer base? Let us know in the comments.