Why Being Proactive Matters

Being proactive in your delivery of customer service experience matters. It is one of the most significant ways to increase customer satisfaction, customer retention, and profitability. Regardless of how much attention you put into research and development for your products or services, it is inevitable that problems, concerns, and issues will arise for your customer base.

A proactive approach will identify these issues often before the customer ever does and gives you an opportunity to shine. For example, when you call a customer to inform them of a potential issue and tell them how it can be rectified, the customer will know that you are serious about the quality of your products or services and their satisfaction.

Take vehicle recalls, for example. Big auto manufacturers practice proactive customer service every time they identify a growing and common problem with their vehicles by issuing a recall notice to all of their customers who own the particular vehicle impacted.

The customers who receive the notice may not be experiencing the problem at hand but are notified anyway. They’re given the opportunity to have the part fixed or replaced before the issue ever occurs.

This customer-focused approach may be very costly upfront for the auto manufacturer, but in the long run, it won’t be. They understand that proactive customer service can mean the difference in customer loyalty and satisfaction and losing customers to their competitors.

How To Be Proactive

It may seem tricky to identify where to start to build your proactive customer service and proactive customer care departments. Don’t worry; it’s not as hard as you may think!

It all begins with developing your proactive customer service strategy that might include:

• Proactive Customer Service Strategy
• Dedicated Proactive Customer Care Teams
• Dedicated Resolution Teams
• eCommerce Frequently Asked Questions Page
• Social Media

Proactive Customer Service Strategy

You and your support team must dedicate time and resources to developing a proactive customer service strategy that creates a framework for all of your company’s teams to follow. While the task of customer service may fall on one department directly, providing proactive customer care involves every team and aspect of your company.

With a clearly defined strategy, your chances of successfully implementing proactive customer care are significantly increased.

Dedicated Proactive Customer Care Teams

Your strategy should include dedicated proactive customer care teams whose primary duties center on seeking out problems and issues before they arise. Then, they will contact customers to inform them of these issues and gauge their satisfaction with your product or service.

Dedicated Resolution Teams: Exceeding Customer Expectations

Once your dedicated, proactive customer care teams identify a problem, they need a dedicated resolution team that is trained and equipped to handle or correct the problem. This way, when they contact customers, they have the knowledge base to provide the solution at the same time.

eCommerce Frequently Asked Questions Page

It won’t take long for your team to collect data on some of the most common customer-reported issues or concerns. Compile this data into an easy-to-use self-help FAQ page on your website that provides easy resolutions for customers to follow.

Social Media

Social media is a powerful support tool at your disposal. Every successful company in the world uses social media for its marketing and customer engagement. It’s not only Instagram; platforms like LinkedIn have become forums for customer feedback and correlating assistance.

Encourage your customers to follow you on your various social media platforms and provide useful proactive customer service for known problems as they arise. In some cases, if your team keeps a careful eye on the channel’s notifications, you can even help customers in real time.

On platforms, you can also post tutorial videos (if applicable) to guide people through your product or serve as the critical step in the customer journey. That way, potential customers will understand better what they get for your company’s pricing, and existing customers won’t need to follow up with questions.

The Benefits of Proactive Customer Service

Now that we’ve identified what proactive customer service is, let’s take a look at some of the many benefits your business can experience through a proactive customer service approach.

Key Takeaways:

• Increased Customer Satisfaction
• Increased Customer Loyalty And Retention
• Reduced Demand On Call Centers And Customer Service Teams
• Increased Profits

Increased Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is the number one benefit of proactive customer service for your company. It’s tempting to decode this with critical metrics like the Net Promoter Score, but let’s get personal here for a minute.

Separate yourself from being a business leader for a moment and think from the perspective of a customer.

In your lifetime, it is highly likely that you’ve experienced poor customer service, like long wait times, useless self-service pages, or an unhelp chatbot. As such, you know that the level of service provided by a company, regardless of the quality of their services or product, will influence you to remain a customer or not.

Some of the biggest names in business around the world are often known more for their customer-centric service than they are for their products, especially when they provide products or services similar to other companies. This recognition is bifocal, meaning positive and negative. Customer service is often the deciding factor for consumers when choosing who to do business with.

Choosing not to invest in proactive customer service will result in reduced customer service efficiency, and this will cause more problems than it solves. If you look at the big picture, the cost of customer service investment is minimal compared to the cost of customer attrition.

Increased Customer Loyalty and Retention

That leads us to customer loyalty and retention. The cost of finding new customers can be five times higher than the cost of retaining existing customers. Therefore, increasing brand loyalty and customer retention should be a high priority for your marketing strategy.

Proactive customer support and customer care increase customer satisfaction, which in turn increases brand loyalty and customer retention.

If your customers are happy and satisfied with the customer support and care they receive, they are far more likely to continue doing business with you versus your competitors. At the core of proactive customer service is the message of caring that it provides your loyal customers.

In other words, when you actively seek out pain points and issues that will or are affecting your customers, contact them to inform them of these problems. Then, work with them to prevent or correct the issue. When you address these common issues, you send the customer a clear message — you care about their happiness.

Most customers are cognizant that it costs a company more money to be proactive than to be reactive, at least in the short term, anyways. Sacrificing profits in favor of customer satisfaction helps demonstrate your commitment to customer care and happiness.

Reduced Demand On Call Centers and Customer Service Teams

Having a proactive approach to customer care reduces demand on call centers and customer service teams. By making the first move to dedicate resources to the sole goal of proactiveness, you eliminate possible customer pain points.

Long wait times and inadequate service are two of the biggest customer complaints shoppers have about call center customer service. Surely you’ve had to call the customer service of a company you do business with and been on hold for 15, 20, or even 45 minutes before you spoke with someone.

Call centers are not cheap to operate, and your resources will be limited to some extent. Therefore, this reduces demand for these services means that customers who reach out to support agents must get help quickly.

Increased Profits

All of these benefits point to one great effect for your company — increased profits. When your customers are satisfied and well taken care of, they will continue to spend money on new products or services.

What’s more, happy customers will tell their friends and family about how well you have taken care of them, which will lead to new customers doing business with you.

Yes, instituting proactive customer service will have a cost, but the rewards it generates make this cost worth it. If you were to conduct an ROI analysis, you would find that your profits and growth were largely impacted by this investment.

The old adage that it takes money to make money shines bright here. Invest in your customers’ needs, happiness, and satisfaction, and they will continue to invest in you.

How We Can Help: Unparalleled Customer Experience

Exceptional and proactive service is at the very center of what we do at AwesomeOS. We can be your trusted customer service outsourcing partner and help you maximize the care and support your customers receive at a fraction of the cost of in-house development.

We provide dedicated-team-only resources, make it our mission to reflect your company culture, and strive to be an extension of your company, not just a partner.

Contact us today to discover how we can help elevate your customer service to the next level.

Sources:

What is Proactiveness | IGI Global

What is a Customer Journey Map and Why is It Important? | TechTarget

Don't Spend 5 Times More Attracting New Customers, Nurture The Existing Ones | Forbes