Personalizing your Customer Contact

Research from LivePerson reveals that 87% of online consumers agree that they are likely to be loyal to a company that delivers a great online experience. More and more, companies are realizing that good customer service is key. Personalization can play an important role in improving customer contact. Here are a few ways to get you started personalizing your customer service.

  1. Use human interactions

    Your online customers are looking for customer service representatives who understand and can discuss their problem and are committed to helping them. Since automated communication systems can’t provide this customer experience, human interaction is essential for a personal experience.

  2. Be available

    The same survey from LivePerson shows that 33% of consumers struggled to find help or to locate customer services. Therefore, it is key to make sure help is available and that you clearly indicate where customers can get it. Customers should have the feeling that there’s always somebody available to provide help.

  3. Use multiple communication channels

    Your customers are active on many different channels (Twitter, Facebook, email, telephone, etc.), so you should be too. Customers will use their preferred channel, so respond to them on the same channel and avoid jumping from one channel to another with the same customer. If necessary, give your customers clear instructions on what to do and make sure they don’t have to repeat their story for each new agent.
    Go beyond the default set of communication channels and look into innovative ways to support your customers and amaze them. For example, consider web-based audio and video chat and cobrowsing.

  4. Build a support community

    Sometimes customers prefer to receive an explanation from other customers. To accommodate this, you can build a platform where customers can ask questions, start discussions and give user tips. Besides getting help themselves, customers can answer questions from other customers. If necessary, service agents can always respond to a problem. The Hewlett Packard platform is a good example of a successful support community.
    Surfly enables remote support through the sharing of a customer’s web browser session and it works in a fast, simple and safe way. An agent gets a real-time look at a customer’s screen, which will help them to explain things to the customer and solve the problem.