Communicating effectively is an art. Just like language has no boundaries. Emojis have become the new form of expression and we are here for it.
Since millennials have hopped on the bandwagon, emojis are increasingly becoming popular amongst that particular age group and lower. Leave it to Gen Z individuals to find the quickest, most convenient way to get something done. Emojis are no exception for them. For example, you want to approve of something, just send the thumbs up emoji and you are golden. More and more apps have added emojis to chats and stories for quick responses and it works because it saves time and the need to unnecessarily indulge in small talk.
A Brief History of Emojis
So what exactly are emojis? An emoji is a visual character that represents an action or an emotion. The origins of the word ‘emoji’ are Japanese. It is a combination of the words ‘letter’ and ‘picture’, combining the words makes it a pictograph.
Long before emojis, there were text emoticons, which were faces made out of punctuation marks. They were first published in 1881 in an American humor magazine. In a span of 100 years and more emoticons could be seen everywhere. During the internet boom, emoticons represented the AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) culture of the 1990s.
The emojis Finally entered the chats. The advent of emojis is credited to the Japanese phone carrier: Softbank as they pioneered the release of the first set of emojis in 1997.
In 2008 SoftBank’s tech was utilized by apple to make Japan’s first emoji set for iPhones. Later in 2011, Apple mainstreamed the emoji set by adding the emoji keyboard to all of the company’s models.
Remember the days when we had to make do with using punctuation marks and alphabets as alternatives to the current emojis. When we finally purchased phones that had emoji keyboards, all the friends in our contact list had an emoji next to their name.
Emojis made their way into text messages very recently. This achievement (of sorts) can be credited to Skype and the wide variety of emojis it offered, still does. We have come a long way since then because smartphone keyboards are constantly evolving.
Customer Service and Emojis
You must have come across emoji surveys online and offline. Again the purpose of these surveys is to assess the customer’s experience in the shortest time possible. Mood cards usually range from happiest to saddest and angriest. For customers that are especially in a hurry, this is a great way to communicate how they feel without the hassle of penning their experience down.
Find the best use of an emoji kind here are some tips that can be used to increase the customer service experience so that the customer does not sense a lack of effort rather perceives it as a convenience.
- The Tone Matters
In the survey when any question is put forward, the tone can affect the customer’s response to the question. For example, instead of writing “rate your experience”, the question can be rephrased to, “How was your overall experience with us”. The first one feels impersonal Whereas the second one has a friendly and sweet tone. The customer will pick up the same enthusiasm and if they have had a bad experience, they will very likely be honest about their response.
- Talk Their Talk
Customers do not care about what can’t be done, do they want to know what you can do. In the interest of making it strictly relevant to customer service solutions, the first order of action is to make the experience as personalized as practically possible. Start by addressing the customer with their name and then intently listening to their concerns. If the conversation is happening via real-time chat, adding sporadic emojis will surely personalize the conversation. The customer surveys can be added to the call and/or chat services you are offering.
We hope that you enjoyed learning about emojis and also so their significance to customer service. If you are still looking for customer service solutions, we recommend Spectrum Billing for seamless services ranging from customer service phone numbers, internet customer service, TV customer service to voice customer service.