Today, consumers want to be seen and known for who they are, rather than simply as numbers or faceless transactions. According to Accenture, 91% of consumers would rather shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide relevant offers and recommendations. A great way of making consumers feel known and recognized is by tailoring core aspects of the customer journey to their wants, needs, and pain points. Stuck for a starting point? Why not try a more personalized approach to customer support? Before we get into how personalization can be utilized to increase customer happiness and brand loyalty, let’s take a look at the meaning of the word.
Personalization is a strategy that allows businesses to optimize their interactions with each customer’s individual preferences, behaviors, and experiences in mind. It enables companies to build connections and engagement with their customers, which in the longer term leads to loyalty and customer retention. Done right, it’s a powerful way of demonstrating just how much your customers matter to you -- and how much you think and care about them. If a company is unable to establish long-term relationships with its customers, it will struggle to stay in business.
For best results, personalization should be applied throughout the buyer’s journey by marketing, sales, and customer support. To maximize the ROI of their marketing spend, companies can take a data-driven approach to product recommendations by offering suggestions based on customer purchase behavior, creating targeted email and social media campaigns, and leveraging automation and customized content. While the tactics may vary, the endgame is the same: creating (and curating!) an authentic, meaningful, and delightful experience for your customers. This blog post focuses on how to use personalized customer support to achieve that same outcome.
How to use personalization in customer support.
Let’s walk through some of the techniques that can be used to add personalization to customer support processes.
Segmentation: Customers can be segmented based on their user type, industry, location, or even company size. Support agents can gain insight into distinct characteristics of groups and personas based on their common activities and tailor their support and recommendations accordingly. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a substantial increase in the number of people who were shopping online. Companies catering to e-commerce businesses can use this information to personalize their recommendations and support for such businesses. If you work with B2B e-commerce companies, having a deeper understanding of changes in the industry will enable you to deliver more relevant advice and support to your customers.
Customer activities: Modern customer support software enables support agents to view customer activities, customer health, past interactions with customer support, and product usage. With this information at their fingertips, support agents have everything they need to provide customers with the best solutions to their issues. For customers with recurring issues, insight into product and user context enables support agents to frame their responses more empathetically, to solve the issue permanently. Phrases like, “I see you’ve had this issue before, we can recommend a more lasting solution to this issue” provide a powerful starting point for making customers feel seen, heard, and understood, and showing them that you take the issue seriously.
Understand customers: While having data on customer activities is a great way to jump-start personalization, understanding customers can take personalization one step further. Support agents can demonstrate their knowledge of each customer by understanding their preferences, purchase behavior, history, and activities. Customers feel a deeper connection and sense of loyalty to companies that understand them and are often more willing to share more information in return.
Using real-time data analytics: To successfully gather up-to-date data from customers, companies need to invest in real-time data analytics software. Software that is capable of monitoring customer activities in real-time, and developing patterns based on the data gathered is essential for building a solid personalization strategy. IrisAgent is a great starting point.
Benefits of personalization in customer support
What are the business values that companies can expect when they employ personalization strategies?
Meet customer expectations: In the ever-evolving world of business, it can be challenging to meet customer expectations. Companies that gain a deeper understanding of their customers and personalize their interactions with them are much more likely not only to meet their customers’ expectations but surpass them. This would likely improve the company’s Net Promoter Score and reduce customer churn.
Customer loyalty: Happy customers stay for the long haul. If all their needs are being met, customers are far less likely to look elsewhere. Companies that have up-to-date, relevant information on their customers and a deep understanding of their wants, needs, pain points, and experience have everything they need to provide excellent customer support. The result? Delightful customer experiences and a boost to customer loyalty in the long run.
Efficient customer support: If your support agents have real-time, accurate data on their customers, they are much more likely to be able to provide the right solutions in a timely manner. For example, a network provider with information on a customer’s phone model and location can provide a more accurate and detailed explanation of why the customer continues to have internet issues, and proactively take whatever steps are needed to resolve it.
Companies that understand the value of personalization invest in a technology that would enable them to gather and process customer information efficiently and accurately. IrisAgent takes personalized customer support to a whole new level by resolving tickets with product and user context and monitoring customer health in real-time. Book a demo to get started immediately!
