Figure 2 <\/a>shows the tactics that high-touch and low-touch brands might adopt, depending on customer or transaction value. For instance, a low-touch brand can use an automation-heavy, human-blended approach to engage inbound customers of high value whereas a high-touch brand may use the same approach to engage even low-value customers in alignment with its branding strategy. A human-heavy approach will allow easier escalation to human assistance while an automation-heavy approach will make it more difficult to escalate, and human agents may hand off conversations to bots.<\/p>\n2.\tDo it at the right time<\/h2>\n
You would have seen this as a consumer\u2014the second you go to a website, you will be literally ambushed with an offer of a chat or a feedback survey. This is a major turnoff. A better approach would be to set rules so that the offer is made at the appropriate time\u2014for instance, when a consumer has been on a page for some time or if they have filled up the shopping cart to a certain dollar amount.<\/p>\n
3.\tMake the right offer<\/h2>\n
Proactive service entails making the right offer, based on context. It could be an offer to talk to a chatbot, chat or cobrowse with a human, or escalate to a phone conversation, or information about a useful companion product, a cross-sell promotion, or a tip that will avert a future call (i.e., Next Issue Avoidance).<\/p>\n
4.\tGo omnichannel<\/h2>\n
Though there can be channel-specific offers, proactive customer service should be consistent across touchpoints. Inconsistency of answers leads to customer frustration and inconsistent promotions lead to offer shopping. Go with a customer engagement solution that unifies knowledge, AI, and analytics across all interaction channels. <\/p>\n
5.\tOptimize with analytics<\/h2>\n
A\/B testing is critical to understanding what offers work and what do not. Make sure your customer engagement solution allows easy A\/B testing for each touchpoint and across omnichannel journeys. For example, a retailer may test a free shipping offer against a price discount when the shopping cart is above a certain value. A financial services company could test form completion rates with or without an offer to help fill the forms with cobrowse. In fact, one of our clients saw a 200% increase in form completion rates by offering to cobrowse! A large retail client deflected up to 60% of phone calls with a proactive self-service offer for relevant content.<\/p>\n
Proactive service in action<\/h2>\n
A credit union giant with over 5 million members provides proactive, omnichannel service based on a 360-degree context of members across the contact center, digital channels, and branch offices. The service organization proactively notifies members about events such as transaction threshold limits reached and impending credit card expiration. The notifications are based on members\u2019 channel preferences and are branded uniformly, while integrating with existing systems for relevant data and events.<\/p>\n
Final word<\/h2>\n
Implemented with best practices, proactive customer service can create memorable customer experiences, help deflect contact that increases effort for the customer and cost for the service organization, and add transformational value to the business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Proactive customer service is the act of providing contextual customer service at the right time, right place, and the right way, even before the customer asks for it. It can be leveraged in specific customer issues and across customer life stages. Here are five best practices for success. 1. Align with business and brand strategy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11226,"featured_media":882826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}