Proactive Prep: Five Tips to Fine Tune Your Proactive Outreach Campaign

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Many of the latest contact center management tools on the market today are designed to bridge the gap between consumer preference and businesses objectives. By using tools like automation and business intelligence together, contact centers can not only reach larger, more targeted prospects that will help them fill opportunity pipelines, but they can also create customized and personalized campaigns which will be better received by the consumer recipients. According to the 2016 Aspect Consumer Experience Index, 67 percent of consumers say a personalized customer service experience is more important than speed of service.

The reason for proactive campaigns can vary depends on business needs. From managing a public relations crisis, communicating sales promotions, or to follow up on customer service inquiries, proactive campaigns can have a lasting, positive impact on the way your customers view your brand.
But before you begin a campaign, here are five tips to keep in mind:

Make it scale to prevent the fail Even if your outreach program is fully automated, the odds are good that your outreach will result in an uptick in contact center volume. As such, having a plan in place to be able to scale up to meet volume will mean you won’t miss out on opportunities should that program become lit. On the other hand, you need to be prepared to dial things back when the tide starts to go out or you’ll be blowing through all that new revenue on unused or underused labor costs.

Data While some customers will view your proactive approach in a positive light, others may see it as intrusive. You need to know how to effectively pick your spots to maximize results—and that’s where customer data gets invited to the party. Your campaign will perform better if you’re reaching someone with a tailored message on their channel of choice, (and not when they’re not at work or out with family). Use the data available to you to find your campaign’s sweet spot.

Expect the unexpected A proactive messaging campaign may be a sign of goodwill in your eyes, but does a customer view it the same way? To be honest, not always. Contact center leaders know to expect the unexpected – the unintended blowback from customers who have been marketed to one too many times. And your agents should be prepared to handle those calls. Be sure your agents are continually honing their skills with eLearning and coaching so that no matter how a customer responds, your agents will be prepared to handle the heat of some while maximizing the moment with others who are interested in the promotion or deal your team is offering.

Make your messaging consistent across channels Consistency is essential to a seamless customer experience and the same holds true for outbound campaigns. However, every channel has different limitations and opportunities. Messaging apps will allow you to use autonomous chatbots with no character limit, while Twitter will only give you 140 characters. Regardless of how you adapt your message for the medium, message consistency across channels is key. The message that is conveyed via text message may read differently when it is sent via WhatsApp, to avoid confusion amongst agents and potential customers it is essential that messaging stays consistent.

Dig into your data Every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to learn more about them for future use. Therefore, every outreach campaign affords you ample opportunities to gather information on what channels performed better than others, which messages were effective and which were not. The data collected will allow you to further personalize customer experiences and drive sustained long-term growth. This is also true for measuring internal performance. Using data analytics, you can measure the performance of your agents and contact center as a whole to adjust your future initiatives too.

Proactive outreach will help you anticipate customer needs and deliver timely, personalized service.

Tim Dreyer
Tim Dreyer, Director of Public Relations and Analyst Relations at Aspect, is a results-oriented manager with over 18 years of advertising, marketing communications and public relations and social media experience developing and implementing media programs, advertising strategy, and marketing programs. Tim's background includes a range of broad cross-functional experience and strong leadership.

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