Hello there, welcome to the next chapter in our thrilling journey to the top of the Mount Rushmore of customer service excellence. We have gone through customer service metrics such as NPS and Customer Effort Score. We have also learnt the importance of customer service to an organization. You must be chomping at the bit to incorporate all these new and wonderful concepts in your organization. There are still more exciting things we are yet to discover. Customer service is a dynamic, ever changing field. As such, there are new, exciting shifts in practice and concepts. One new shift is from a reactive customer service style to a proactive one.
Traditional practice in customer service dictates that the service team waits for customers to come to them with their problems. Since time immemorial this has been the practice. In recent times, a new school of thought is emerging. Experts in the customer service field are now harping on customer service being proactive instead of reactive. A study by inContact found that consumers were generally positive with proactive service. In fact, 87% of adults surveyed are happy to be contacted proactively by companies regarding customer service issues
Proactive customer service
Proactive customer service refers to a customer service team that resolves issues before they occur. This means the support team addresses potential problems that customers may run into before it happens. There are some potential questions that customers are likely to ask. For example, customers may have some questions after purchasing an item online.
- When will the item be delivered?
- Can they track the package in transit?
- Will the package arrive in good condition?
A proactive team will address these issues before they come up. Once the item is purchased, the business shares relevant information regarding delivery to the customer before they ask. This preempts the customer calling customer support.
Four ways to be proactive
At this point, you may be scratching your head and asking how you will know the problems customers will run into before they occur. Is it by using magic or prophets? Rest easy, it involves no use of mythical powers.
Collect and analyze customer feedback, user data and customer activity. This will enable you to gain understanding and be able to predict issues they might run into. The support team should also send out surveys to customers. You gain more knowledge about them. This can also help them curate the typical problems customers run into. With this information, a proactive customer service team can then offer the needed help before these issues arise. The information gained from the surveys can be used to build a knowledge base about your clients, the usual problems they get into and the solutions that helped them or did not help.
Monitor customer activity. This works both online and in store. Customer service has to keep an eye on customers to spot any who might be having any problems. Same goes for online transactions. Companies can monitor customer activity on their website for telltale indicators of problems. The telltale indicators are rag clicking (repeatedly clicking on one point), dead clicking ( clicking on something that looks clickable but is not) and thrash cursors (moving the mouse erratically or in circles). When behaviours such as these are spotted, a pop-up message can be sent to offer assistance to the customer in need quickly.
Monitor social media activity regarding your company. In these times, customers may not report their problems to the organization but they will tweet or post about it. The customer service team has to monitor social media for any mention of a customer facing problems and then fix them immediately. This will help put customers at ease and prevent a bad rep from forming about your company.
Announce your mistakes early and loudly. When you run out of supplies or are facing difficulties in meeting the needs of customers, announcing it loud and early seems counterintuitive. Traditional business practice would tell us announcing your mistakes will give your company a bad reputation. In this Information Age, it is inevitable that the news will come out. It is therefore better for the organization itself to announce these mistakes or shortages themselves before customers find out from other sources. Announcing it makes customers know you are aware of the problem and working on a solution. The practice of trying to keep it under wraps will inevitably fail. Your customers will end up frustrated with the poor service.
The importance of proactive customer service
Now that we have seen how to go about proactive customer service, you might ask yourself this question, why choose proactive customer service over a reactive one? Well, there are a whole host of reasons. You keep customers satisfied. Satisfied customers are loyal ones. Loyal customers become your promoters and this means increased revenue for your business.
All too soon, we have come to the end of another exciting chapter on our excellent customer service journey. Today we have learnt about the benefits of a proactive customer service over a reactive one and how to make our customer service proactive. Let’s take this knowledge and be winners.
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