Proactive customer service is vital for increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction. According to Gartner’s report, proactive customer service results in a whole point increase. To improve customer experience and promote customer loyalty, you should develop a proactive customer service strategy.
When was the last time a customer service team made you feel good?
Maybe you placed an internet order for a coat only to discover that the retailer was out of stock. However, the salesperson had the coat sent from another place. He brought it directly to your doorstep rather than giving up or giving a refund. This example demonstrates proactive customer service and why it is valuable. However, if your company doesn't properly grasp the idea of proactive customer support, it will never be able to stay ahead of customer issues.
In this blog, we'll discuss:
In this paragraph, we will discuss proactive customer service. Firstly, the term "proactive support" can also refer to proactive customer service. Secondly, proactive service entails going above and beyond to help your customers before they feel compelled to ask for assistance. Offering customers brand-new products or services they might like, or informing them of bugs and flaws as soon as they are discovered.
Both proactive service and proactive support provide amazing customer experiences. The former focuses on anticipating and resolving customer issues. While the latter implies offering more chances to enhance the customer experience.
To provide proactive customer service, your company must exceed expectations even after the sale. Offering customers everything they need for the greatest customer experience allows you to increase their loyalty and establish your credibility. According to Deloitte statistics 60% of brands report increased sales when they improve customer service.
All customer service, though, cannot always be proactive. It is only used in special situations. Reactive customer service is as valuable.
Finding out who starts contact is a simple method to comprehend the differences. Reactive customer service occurs when the customer contacts the company first. As opposed to proactive service where the company reaches out to potential clients.
There is no superior or inferior option. In fact, employing both tactics is the ideal course of action. Proactively suggest services that might complement. Or support a customer's processes if you see trends in their purchase behavior. Reactively respond to inquiries from customers. The ones who have questions about your product, and help them succeed.
The addition of proactive measures may seem like an overwhelming task if your customer service team has historically been reactive. Next, we'll discuss how to implement proactive customer service in your own company.
The improvement of your proactive customer service depends on consumer input. Assuming that they understand what their consumers want. And the need is one of the major misconceptions businesses make. Doing so from an internal perspective is nearly impossible. Because of this, the simplest method to understand your customers is to just ask them how they feel.
Collecting direct input from your customers would be the first step in making your customer service proactive. Customer feedback is crucial to enhancing your proactive customer service. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is assuming they know what their customers want and need, which is very difficult to determine from an internal standpoint. Therefore, the simplest method to understand your customers is to just ask them how they feel while conducting the survey.
You can use questionnaires to get feedback from customers. These will help you to enhance various elements of your organization. You could ask, "What do you wish we had done more of?". Or "How could we have made your buying experience better?". These questions will help you learn how to be more proactive with future customers.
Surveys, like the Life platform offers, are great for gathering this feedback. These surveys collect both qualitative and quantitative customer data.
Knowledge bases provide details on a business, its goods and services, and related subjects.
Customers can use it to troubleshoot problems independently. It may include articles, FAQs, and video lessons. Given that you are anticipating prospective problems, this is a form of proactive help. Giving customers access to the data they will need to address their problems before they even emerge.
A "Products You May Like" or recommendation function is an example of proactive customer service. It helps customers achieve success by providing suggestions that complement or enhance their experience. You're already advising them on what they ought to think about purchasing. Saving them the time and effort of having to look for new things.
These recommendations can be based on the purchasing habits of specific customers. Algorithms can also analyze the purchasing patterns of similar clients. By suggesting items that might interest the customer, you can both demonstrate your concern for them and even increase income.
These suggestions don't have to be limited to goods and services. Based on users' watching habits and the ratings they give previously viewed content, Netflix, a streaming service for TV shows and movies, recommends new content to users. These recommendations are examples of proactive customer service.
Beyond only suggesting goods and services, there are more ways to stay in touch with the customers. This can be accomplished by sending out email newsletters to your consumers. Newsletters will keep them informed and engaged with your business.
Blog posts, business news, product releases, events, and more can all be included in your email newsletter. You should adapt the material to your company's offers, regardless of what you choose to include.
These newsletters can offer proactive customer service if you describe common problems that customers encounter. Also, can present solutions by endorsing goods or services that will satisfy their requirements.
Reducing customer effort is a component of proactive assistance. Also, providing automated or SMS scheduling options is one method.
Put consumers on an automatic schedule. For instance, if one of your products needs routine maintenance, they won't need to manually set up appointments. Or, if a client adores a product, you might provide automatic payment plans. This, way they may keep using it without remembering to renew their monthly subscription.
This technique offers both proactive assistance and service by decreasing their work and. Providing them with tools that will help them
Like gossip, business controversies can swiftly expose your flaws to the public through social media.
You're missing out on an important chance to understand your customers better if you're not keeping an eye on what people are saying about you. Given this, it's always advisable to monitor your various social media accounts. Also, keep tabs on what people are saying about your business. By help of Live, utilize the power of social for multichannel messaging for sales, marketing, and support. Automatically capture new leads from social media while enabling seamless support for your customers.
To provide proactive customer service on social media, you can do social listening. Other ways are to follow keywords and hashtags connected to your company. You may respond right away and provide a solution.
It takes a lot for customers to remain loyal to a business. You should congratulate yourself on acquiring each lifetime client. However, you should never forget to express your gratitude to devoted customers for their support and faith in your company.
With loyalty programs, you can thank customers for continuing to do business with you. As you provide exclusive deals and discounts that will improve and complement consumer experiences. These programs are an example of proactive customer service.
If a customer approaches you about a glitch, a technical mistake, or a general, erroriit might be discouraging. It's discouraging for customers as well because they'd much rather hear about problems directly from you and to know that you're putting remedies in place.
As a result, proactive customer service best practices involve acknowledging errors and alerting clients to problems before they notice them. If you can't fully fix the problem, you can offer discounts or refunds and express your regret for the inconvenience.
Customers are receiving the help they require in the event of a problem. You are providing a refund to ease the burden of a defective product for a worry-free experience. Customers appreciate this strategy because it demonstrates your zeal, integrity, and commitment to delivering value.
Let's discuss a few actual examples of companies that engage in proactive customer service.
To help customers search for and find solutions to support difficulties, Facebook has done an outstanding job. Facebook has built a comprehensive knowledge base. Most queries customers may have regarding their personal accounts and corporate accounts. Also, advertisement management can be resolved via this help area.
Video streaming issues can render websites like Netflix completely inaccessible. Because they recognize the danger for their company reputation, Netflix took precautionary measures to appease their customers.
When problems arise that prevent Netflix subscribers from streaming, the business provides a statement informing them of the outage. The fact that they make no effort to downplay the problem,or disparaging the intelligence of their users is what really stands out in this case.
Instead, Netflix expresses regret for the problem. And occasionally credits the accounts of all users to make up for the lost time.
Netflix demonstrates through this proactive example the importance of taking the initiative. Long before your consumers start calling in to complain.
The US truck rental company Budget Truck Rental introduced an intelligent virtual agent from Intelliresponse to their web self-service platform. This virtual agent is giving prompt responses to queries from potential clients. This is one of the most straightforward instances, but it is no less intriguing.
In the first seven months of operation, they have reduced incoming call center calls by 28 percent. Also saved $875,000 in costs, and increased online revenue.
Tesco Mobile uses social customer support to proactively check in with customers. The business uses social media to interact with its new customers.
A social support representative contacts them the day after they sign up to inquire about their experience. Whether there is anything they can do to help.
Shopping for furniture was a guessing game before augmented reality. You couldn't tell how a piece would appear in your home until you placed it there.
The augmented reality app from IKEA solves this problem by enabling customers to set things in their homes. And see how they appear before making a purchase. A proactive service like this one gives customers peace of mind. Also, giving them a lessens the need for additional support encounters when they're not happy.
Customer behavior has changed, making a proactive customer service strategy more crucial than ever. They take an active approach to seek out solutions and reasons to upgrade to better goods or services. Providing proactive customer service gives you a competitive edge in a market that is becoming more and more volatile. Being ahead of the issues and worries that your clients most often have is the secret. In the end, this fosters consumer satisfaction through fostering trust.
With our cutting-edge features like social networks, surveys, email newsletters, Live can truly offer companies the greatest proactive customer service solution. We help companies in delivering a "wow" consumer experience through all media.
Find out more information on how Live product family can support and enhance your CX strategy.
