All of this is a consequence of a proactive customer service strategy. There is a customer requirement that a proactive customer service interaction can support and improve. This has huge utilisation and cost implications for Virgin Media. While we will later present some great use-cases of how best to implement proactive customer service, there is a lot to think about before designing your strategy. Eindhoven Airport also uses proactivity tools in customer support to tell customers that something has actually changed, so the customer changes what they are doing. Many companies have reached this stage, but don’t take proactivity any further. This allows them to be proactive. If the customer is receiving three or four pop-up messages from your brand a week, they may grow tired of you and send the messages to a spam folder. Proactive customer support is all about making the first move … We need to consider if proactivity has an impact on our ability to be relevant and valued by our customers, remembering that customers will leave if they no longer recognize the value that they receive. “With more data to work from, we can better assess customer needs. So, how can we, as the customer, value what’s happened? These alerts often appear through customer service apps, SMS messages and email, covering a whole range of topics – whether it’s delivery updates or bank statements. Similarly, using the same technology and approach, Copa Airlines has reduced its call and chat volume by 40%, which has freed up their live agents’ time to focus on helping customers that have urgent and more complex enquiries. If that road gets repaired smoothly, you can’t see that there was a problem there or appreciate the effort that went into repairing it. While we have only considered proactivity at certain points in the customer experience, Eindhoven Airport looks to positively influence customer behaviour in three stages. Analysis of leading companies shows that many realise that relying just on reactive customer service is no longer sufficient in order to compete, differentiate and drive their businesses forward. While mistakes have no doubt been made, there are many organizations that have been successful in their use of proactive customer service. Proactively engaging your visitors and customers when … One of the simplest examples but no less compelling is that of US truck rental firm, Budget Truck Rental, which added an intelligent virtual agent from Intelliresponse to its web self-service tool to provide instant answers to questions from prospective customers. Proactive customer service is not a one-size-fits-all model, and some organizations actually like to be reactive, so they can openly engage with customers and blow their socks off in the process. These tools are fed by data, so it’s key that we are reassessing our data, consolidating and then, eventually, automating – as pictured in the diagram below. Alternatively, if your organization doesn’t look to build relationships with customers – and customers don’t necessarily want a relationship with you – sendong lots of proactive notifications could become overkill. For example, when a customer is about to complete a big purchase, but is taking a long time to check out, maybe we can reach out to them with a proactive live chat. In general, customer service skills rely heavily on problem-solving and communication.Customer service is often considered a “soft skill,” including traits like active listening and reading both verbal and nonverbal cues. In the water industry, you can look at pipes and be actively listening to things, such as changes in the water flow.”, “By doing this, the organization has the ability to recognize that the pattern of behaviour is not as it should be, connect that back to data sets and see that this typically is a result of a leak in the area.”, “Then, you can send out a proactive alert to everyone nearby, to inform them in advance that the water will be switched off or that there’s a leak in the area.”. Putting a proactive strategy in place doesn’t mean that customers will value and love you for it – but it can be great in terms of differentiation and exceeding customer expectations. © Wayhome Studio - Adobe Stock - 301648022. In doing so, mistakes have been made, and here are four key examples of such errors. It certainly seems the most basic approach, but saying sorry after the incident creates more work for contact centre in the long run than if we were to take on one of the following three approaches: While many companies that are looking to change are choosing to be proactive, you can use elements of each of these approaches within your overall customer service strategy. The heart of knowing what you want to deliver, in terms of proactive customer service, lies initially in which benefits you want to deliver for your customers. The contact centre can then send a proactive notification to their customer to inform them that the product needs to be changed. This results in a significant number of inbound calls. Even if you’re delivering … How can contact centres become more proactive? In the video, the airport demonstrated how they could recommend flights based on the interests of that potential passenger to places that they had never been before. Whilst in the subsequent timeframe we’ve seen signs of this happening, I don’t think Kate and Forrester go far enough in highlighting that there are opportunities to deliver value to the business and the customer not just in the pre-purchase phase of the customer journey but across the whole customer lifecycle (pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase). As previously highlighted by Shep Hyken, its approach to proactive support is heralded for the manner in which customer issues are flagged in advance of first contact and the capacity support staff have to pre-emptively contact the customer. 4 Mistakes to Avoid With Proactive Customer Service. Every week, a higher percentage of our support interactions are proactive, rather than reactive. To develop a proactive customer service strategy, we need to think about: While this can seem like a lot to consider, reaching out to a customer and solving a problem before they ask, or perhaps even realize, is a great method to lower friction in customer journeys and customer effort overall. The BetterCloud website highlights just how stitched into the company’s DNA proactive service has become: “Think about how many issues never get addressed because of the time-consuming task of submitting a ticket. This is a helpful nudge to the customer, so they begin a journey, based on a clever use of data. This involves tracking the condition of certain products, which alert the contact centre when the product needs repairing or replacing. Christopher adds: “How many of us work in organizations where we know some of the data is not correct?”, “If we’re going to be using that data as part of algorithms to send predictive, proactive messages to customers, it is going to get uncomfortable and we may keep getting responses back that say: ‘This is wrong,’ or: ‘This doesn’t help me.’”. If you are an organization that is well known for recovering issues with customers and it’s a way that you actually retain customers – proactive customer service could work against you. “With Proactive Support, we’re starting to put an end to that type of support experience. But that is certainly not the case with Eindhoven Airport…. So, when creating rules for proactivity, make sure you include all relevant departments in the process, ensuring that you aren’t overwhelming customers and that they only receive the most beneficial alerts. Not Showing Customers the Added Value However, many of us still sit tight and focus on responding to questions when the customer asks. Perhaps you can think about Thames Water; they have 375,000 smart meters installed. Instead, customers will attempt to diagnose and fix problems themselves, or even worse, spend hours looking for an alternative solution. For more on service strategies that will differentiate your organization, read our articles: Published On: 29th Jan 2020 - Last modified: 5th Feb 2020 Read more about - Customer Service Strategy, Customer Effort, Customer Journey, Customer Service, Editor's Picks. A great example of using a proactive message would be to notify a customer when a product that they have viewed multiple times online is on special offer. For example, if the flight departs ten minutes later than scheduled, the arrival time of the share car or “Amber” – as discussed in the video – the arrival time of that car will be adjusted automatically. This is a great example of how we can take away issues from the customer by using data and presenting to the customer what we’ve done for them – to showcase our value. We’ve discussed how we can boost revenues by proactively notifying customers of relevant special offers. However, if your long-term plan is to build frictionless customer journeys while securing long-term customer loyalty, proactive customer service might just be what you’re looking for.

proactive customer service examples

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proactive customer service examples 2020