Helpshift this week introduced Connected Customer Conversations and Helpshift for Phone, two products that weave together different customer interaction channels.
Connected Customer Conversations is a platform that links digital channels, phone support, self-service, and bots and embeds them within a single messaging thread, allowing consumers to have one continuous conversation with companies. Customers can get support instantly through self-service and bots. The platform can then route customers to an agent on their channel of choice.
The platform carries context from channel to channel and saves that context and conversation history so both support teams and customers can access them at any time.
"Customer service platforms today are largely built for the benefit of the brand to streamline their support operations. Unfortunately, this has resulted in disconnected experiences and long wait times for the end customer," said Helpshift CEO Linda Crawford in a statement. "We envisioned Connected Customer Conversations to help today's consumers overcome this burden and to make contacting customer service as convenient and effortless as possible. By embedding self-service, phone support, and bots into the messaging conversation, we have delivered on that promise."
As part of Connected Customer Conversations, Helpshift has also launched Helpshift for Phone, an integrated voice and messaging experience. Customers who begin conversations on messaging can be seamlessly escalated to live agents via phone when necessary. Customers who begin their conversations on the phone can dial 1 and receive a text that opens up a personalized messaging conversation. This provides an alternative to waiting on hold for an agent.
Whether it's going from messaging to a call or vice versa, a single conversation and associated transcript are available.
"Everyone has had that terrible experience of calling a brand, navigating an IVR menu, and being placed on hold for 15 minutes, only to then be transferred to a different agent," Crawford said. "We can do better. When backed by a digital-first strategy, brands can weave phone and messaging together to offer the best personalized customer service experience possible."