Crossing Out Reactive And Writing Proactive On A Blackboard.

Leading the Charge: Providing Proactive Customer Service

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Problem resolution is essential to good customer service, but what if you could take action to prevent problems from occurring at all?

Have your agents visualize how it feels to be a customer requesting a service. We may be confused, frustrated or fed up with waiting. We’ve all been there before, and after too many hours spent on the other end of the phone, it’s easy to forget the basic experiences that customers go through.

It’s great to provide fast, effective service, when problems come up. But the inherent problem with that structure is that no matter how effective your solutions are, the customers have already been frustrated by problems that have occurred.

Don’t always wait for your customers to raise the alarm. If you’re aware of an issue, take the initiative to inform them and offer possible solutions. They’ll thank you for the trouble, and you may find that your forethought will ease the stress on your customers and your agents alike.

This type of outreach is powerful. In a 2013 customer service survey, inContact found that not only were 87 percent of adults surveyed open to being proactively contacted by businesses, but also a staggering 73 percent felt more positively about a business that provided a good experience with an incoming call. With statistics like this, the secret to effective customer service becomes clear:

Be Proactive!

Proactive service differs from a typical customer experience in that the business acknowledges potential situations, even before the customer is aware of them. This can come in the form of acknowledging and responding to problems before an official complaint has been issued, or seeing avenues where the customer’s service can be improved and providing it without having to be requested.

Envision a customer learning that there are first-class seats available on their next flight that were never booked. They request an upgrade, and the airline happily obliges. This is great customer service, but imagine how that same customer would feel if the airline preemptively offered the upgrade before the customer made their needs apparent. This is the difference between proactive and reactive customer service, and can be a big tipping point for providing service that exceeds expectations.

The Benefits of Decisive Action

Your customer service agents are the first responders in a crisis.  It’s a process that is primarily reactive — people have complaints, and you do your best to appease them. In LivePerson’s 2013 Connecting with Consumer’s Report, 82 percent of respondents said that getting an issue resolved quickly was their biggest priority. With that in mind, think of how effective taking proactive steps can be, before the problems occur. Preventing problems before they start can yield benefits to your company’s reputation, revenue and overall satisfaction rates.

  • You set the pace: Instead of waiting for customers to call in and reacting to their issues, you address the issues at your own pace and when you’re ready to interact with them. This telegraphs a sense of organization and competence that may surprise your customers.
  • Staying ahead of the curve: Problems are unavoidable. However, when you’re aware of what problems are likely to take place based on past experience, you can prevent the simple issues from occurring and may even be able to prevent small problems from ballooning into full-blown catastrophes.
  • Protect customer loyalty: Customer frustration is a big detriment to brand loyalty. Preventing problems before they start keeps your customers informed, happy and much less likely to shop around.

For Best Results, Hang Loose

Flexibility is a critical step in creating a preventative service experience. Effective contact centre agents need to be able to adapt to situations and recognize where potential hang-ups may occur.

This is where scripts can really slow you down, as relying on flowchart-based problem solving limits the creativity and options of your agents. Even if you aren’t able to prevent every problem, good customer service representatives should be able to analyze the needs of the customer and provide outside the box solutions to whatever problems arise.

This is easier said than done! But what turns acceptable customer service into great experiences are agents who are able to deliver above and beyond the expectations of the customer. When combined with preventative customer service techniques that diffuse problems before they start, you can provide an experience that will delight and impress whoever is lucky enough to do business with you.

Interested in more ways to turn your reactive services into proactive solutions? Check out our free white paper!

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