Provide Proactive Customer Service by Leveraging Customer Data

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Our latest research report revealed that contact center leaders looking to exceed customer expectations in 2018 are focused on three key areas of change: modernizing performance metrics, implementing artificial intelligence tools (i.e., chatbots), and connecting customer data systems. The third area, leveraging customer data from text-based interactions provides contact centers the opportunity to deliver experiences that are not only convenient but proactive. This initiative addresses the need to provide intelligent customer service that creates feelings of recognition and reassurance to strengthen the connection between brand and customer.

Similar to business intelligence, the process of analyzing data and presenting actionable insights, intelligent customer service empowers agents to make better decisions and proactively offer recommendations based on data from past interactions. For agents to be able to deliver convenient and highly personal experiences, analytics systems must be connected and the appropriate processes for intelligent customer service must be in place.

Nearly half of the customer service leaders we surveyed struggle with their organization’s ability to connect customers across all channels; it’s no easy task. Therefore we recommend, a “walk before you run” approach to ensure an effective roll out these changes.

Here are the three stages of mastering data-driven intelligent customer service across systems:

CRAWL: connecting systems
Despite contact center leaders’ desire to fully empower their agents, most feel their team is only somewhat able to capture the entire customer journey. Therefore, the first priority in mastering data-driven customer service is ensuring that customer data is successfully captured and managed across multiple channels. All of the platforms and tools your company uses to capture text-based customer interactions should be synced with existing customer data management systems.

WALK: agent efficiency
Now that all your data is in one place, the focus should shift to improving agent efficiency. Agents can streamline the process of gathering customer information through CRM system integration which takes away the need to reference multiple applications at once. Further, having complete customer history readily available gives agents context of all previous in-app/in-web interactions with a particular contact. This universal database, as a result, helps shorten response times by making it simple and fast for agents to access relevant contact information.

RUN: proactive customer service
At the final stage, agents should be so familiar with the tools and platforms used to capture customer data that they are leveraging them in order to work their magic. With access to complete customer profiles across the organization, agents have the actionable insights needed to identify and address potential issues before they occur. At this stage agents can proactively offer help and recommendations, providing your customers with an incredibly convenient and effortless customer experience.

To learn about more digital transformation trends from our contact center survey, download the new report, “The State of Digital Customer Service in 2018.”

Kelsey Brazill
Kelsey Brazill’s passion for digital customer engagement was sparked by social media management roles she held when starting her career in New York City. Her focus has since shifted to field marketing but customer engagement has remained central to her work. As Digital and Field Marketing Programs Manager for Sparkcentral, Kelsey is leveraging both her digital and field marketing experience to champion effortless customer experience through the leading social and customer engagement platform.

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