The buzz around proactive service has been increasing across the past few years. But….most companies focus on providing critical alerts – think flight cancellation messages or power outage alerts. Fewer companies extend proactive service beyond critical to value-added areas — such as helping customers forward resolve issues or educating customers on how to use products. We found that most companies are just not convinced that offering value-added contact is a viable business strategy.
However, our latest research indicates that, implemented correctly, value-added proactive contact can unlock substantial efficiency and effectiveness gains for the business, and also improve customer experience and lower customer effort. That said, implementing value-added contact is complex, since customer preferences of the right contact reason, frequency, and channel can differ widely.
Here’s how you can make value-added contact relevant to the customer and profitable for the business:
Identify the right reason to contact the customer
Companies find it hard to identify the right proactive contact opportunities. For instance, one member company that we spoke to identified 60 possible instances in the customer purchase-to-use cycle of a bundled product offering at which they could potentially send proactive information. So…which of these were meaningful opportunities, and which were irrelevant?
Our research found that two kinds of proactive messages are effective: messages that pre-empt calls and messages that increase utilization of products and services.
Less is more…avoid over-contacting the customer
Over-contacting customers can annoy customers or cause them to ignore messages from you altogether. To avoid overwhelming customers, we suggest that you gather customer preferences for recurring alerts, and surface customer receptivity of point-in-time messages by examining recent contact history. Use this decision tree to ensure the right frequency of proactive messages.
The ‘right’ channel depends on the situation
The best channel for sending the value-added message is not necessarily the customer’s preferred channel. We recommend considering audience characteristics, frequency of the message and complexity of information, to determine the right channel for not only the customer, but the issue itself.
Use CCC’s decision tool to identify the right channel for different value-added service offerings.
So, are you using value-added proactive contact to create a win-win situation for your customers and your business? Let us know how in the comments below.
Related CCC Resources:
- Proactive Value-Added Contact
- Mechanics of Implementing Proactive Contact
- Proactive Contact to Pre-Empt Initial Calls and Callback
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on December 27, 2011
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