Proactive customer care with customer self-service technologies
It's no secret that good customer service is the key to a successful business. But what most people don't know is that the majority of customers would rather not contact customer service at all. Research has shown that 66% of customers would rather solve their problems themselves.
With the right Customer Self Service (CSS) solutions, your company can provide customers with the help they need without having to wait for them to contact you. These technologies can range from online chatbots and support forums to knowledge bases and FAQs.
The beauty of self-service is that customers can find the solutions they need in their own time, without having to wait for an employee to be available. This not only saves time and hassle, but also frees up staff to focus on more complex or urgent issues.
So if you're looking for ways to improve your customer service, consider implementing Customer Self Service. It benefits everyone involved!
In customer service, proactive support is the key to success. By anticipating customer needs and addressing them before they become a problem, you create a better customer experience - and happier customers lead to more sales. In this article, we describe what proactive customer service is and how you can use it to improve your business. We also provide an overview of software vendors that can deliver customer self-service technologies out of the box.
The two types of customer care for online stores
There are two main categories for customer care in e-commerce: reactive and proactive customer service. If you want to develop the most efficient and effective customer service strategy, it's important to balance both approaches. When you think of customer service, you probably imagine a team of agents responding to incoming customer complaints and questions. This reactive customer service is an important way to help customers, but it's only one dimension of broader customer service. Proactive customer service gives you more opportunities to provide helpful answers and persuade customers to buy.
Definition of proactive customer care
Proactive customer service means taking the first step and proactively providing support resources to your customers, rather than waiting for them to contact your D2C brand first. Proactive customer service can be done directly through an agent reaching out to customers, or indirectly through self-help resources like an FAQ page or knowledge base.
Typical use cases for proactive customer care
You can improve your customer experience with a proactive customer service strategy that includes:
Establishment of customer self-help such as FAQ pages or help centers
Live chats with potential customers on your website to offer real-time help
Offer guidance and recommendations to help your customers make a safe purchase
With proactive customer service, you can meet your customers' expectations, create more opportunities for positive customer interactions, and increase the conversion rate of your DTC brand. All without your customers having to go through the trouble of contacting you.
Proactive customer care has a positive impact on customer experience and thus on retention rates and revenue
The goal of proactive customer support is to provide value to customers without waiting for them to make the first move. This is not always easy: you need to study the customer journey, from first contact to repeat customer, to identify and proactively address customer issues and complaints.
Proactive customer support shows customers that your company really cares about their needs. Today, it's not enough to offer great products to achieve a high customer retention rate. Customers choose, share and stay with companies that offer a customer-centric experience in addition to great products and services.
Kickstart for proactive customer service: selection and implementation of customer self-service technologies
According to a customer loyalty statistics from Microsoft 66% of customers try self-service options first before contacting a brand's customer service department. So one of the best ways to proactively serve your customers is to offer them helpful self-service resources like FAQ pages, knowledge bases, forums, and automated chatbots.
The advantages of Customer Self Service
Self-service resources not only improve the customer experience by allowing customers to quickly resolve common issues on their own, but they can also dramatically reduce a company's support ticket volume. That way, your employees spend less time answering repetitive questions and more time on important requests that require human contact.
5 Measures for Customer Self Service
(1) FAQ page
The easiest way to offer self-service options to customers is to have an FAQ page on your website. It's a simple version of a knowledge base that answers frequently asked questions and can be accessed via mobile or desktop devices without having to log in!
However, the first step in creating such a page is to consider what topics are most common among those who contact us or visit our site - this can be found out through various means, such as help desk reports or team member surveys.
(2) Knowledge base for customers
Create a knowledge base with lots of helpful information. You can post guides and answers to frequently asked questions, put them into categories like "How do I do this?" or "What is this?" and then make it easy for your customers by tagging them with keywords so they can find exactly what they're looking for without any effort on their part!
(3) Automation & Chatbots
Chatbots are great for providing automated support, but it's important that you use a well-trained chatbot. An often easier way to get started is with chatbots that display only relevant articles from your company's help center based on keywords, so customers can find answers without chatting with an agent or frustratingly digging through pages of search results.
(4) Pre-Recorded How-to Videos & Tutorials
For products with complex features or if you have a lot of new customers, recorded courses and tutorials can be a great resource to explain how to use the product.
(5) Online forum & communities
Your business may not have the resources to provide around-the-clock support to every customer, especially if you're a small business. In this case, it makes sense that your customers can help each other with some of their common problems and questions, while being part of an active community where they can get quick answers from experienced users when something happens outside of normal business hours or on the weekend!
Forums and communities have the same requirements as chatbots - they work best when supported by your support team. In many cases, customers can answer each other's questions, but ideally you need a community moderator to step in and help when needed!
Technology Radar: The Customer Self Service Software Vendor Market
The landscape of technology providers is bifurcated.
On the one hand, there are the integrated CRM/ticket management suites such as Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, Novomind iAgent or Freshdesk. These suites have already integrated many of these application possibilities such as FAQ list generation, knowledge databases or chatbots.
There are also specialized providers, e.g. Ada for Conversational AI / Chatbot or HelpScout for FAQ, knowledge base and communities. These tools can be integrated quite flexibly into various suites, e.g., via marketplace or app solutions.