What differentiates a local business? How does it manage to exist and become successful while only reaching a small segment of society? You can find the answer in how they treat their regular customers. They may give discounts to their local network or begin small conversations about their lives that they find interesting. Customers like such encounters from business people, and it also demonstrates that the business understands who its customers are and what they want.
Besides providing great products, providing personalized customer service is the second most crucial factor in business success.
Personalized customer service: Definition and examples
You deliver personalized customer service when you deliver tailored support to your customers based on their interests and preferences. For example, a company may use customer data to assess its customer purchase history, searches, purchasing habits, and so on. And then, shoot an email to their customers with a selction of products and services personalized to their interest. That’s an example of personalized marketing and customer interaction.
Let’s look at one more example. Assume you searched for shoes online and went through 2-3 websites like Amazon, Flipkart, and others for “white sneakers.” You couldn’t find what you were searching for. You’ll notice that you’ll start getting emails with subject lines like “We Found The White Shoes You Were Looking For,” and you’ll see sponsored Instagram advertisements for white sneakers. You’ll probably like something and buy it. Personalization is a marketing tactic that also helps in providing personalized customer service. In comparison, if you see advertisements for white shoes while not browsing for sneakers, you will ignore them.
Importance of personalized customer service
Personalized customer service is on its way to capturing a sizable market share. Some stats highlighting the importance of personalized customer service:
- Approximately 90% of businesses have already begun to invest in individualized customer service.
- To create a pleasant customer experience, about 80% of retail organizations invest in personalization technologies.
- When customers see customized transparent adverts for things they looked for online, any company’s revenue improves by 38%.
These figures should persuade you that personalization is not a choice and that you must act immediately because your competitors are already on to reap the benefits of personalized customer service.
How to provide personalized customer service?
There are many ways to make customers feel special and offer them a personalized customer experience. In this article, let us help you with the 5 best ways of providing personalized customer service and wow your customer experience:
Provide omnichannel customer service
Customers that purchase online do not rely on a single channel of communication. They may visit your website first, then look through your Instagram profile before moving on to your app and continuing the engagement there. It is essential to ensure that your customers do not experience any disconnect when switching channels.
For example, a buyer visited your website, placed a product in the cart, but did not complete the purchase. Another consumer discarded their shopping cart on the website but completed the payment on social media. You discovered this consumer behavior through data analysis and sent a follow-up email to customers who abandoned their carts to complete the transaction on the website. It will demonstrate to customers that your organization sees them and cares about their preferences, resulting in increased sales and customer retention.
Also, while in need of help, some customers prefer to call, some like to chat, while others prefer to contact businesses on social media or via email. For great customer service, you should be available on channels most preferred by your customers.
Try “Hey Alex!” instead of “Dear customer”
Using names while addressing your customers creates a sense of belonging among customers, making them feel like you really know them rather than a traditional B2C connection. According to the National Library of Medicine, our brains become ecstatic and focus on the speaker when we hear our names.
In B2B, to boost your B2B relationships, besides just mentioning their names, you should also mention their company’s name or any relevant case study demonstrating why they require your solutions.
Obtaining the names of our target customers has become remarkably simple and can be automated with the touch of a mouse, thanks to digital transformation. To make communication and service personalized for your customers, ensure that your team conducts sufficient research on accurate data to enable personalization.
Use customer journey mapping to understand your customers’ pain points
When every touchpoint on a customer’s journey is streamlined, one-on-one customer interactions become more effective. Customer journey mapping determines the touchpoints a customer may use to communicate with your business. Customer touchpoints can also be spread across channels, including your business website, social media, mobile applications, and email. Once the customer journey map is established, it is time to measure it and find the gaps that can be improved and tailored.
For example, most of your website visitors are stuck at the “add to cart” touchpoint, with just a tiny percentage completing. After analyzing that touchpoint, they discovered that the checkout option has excessive adverts, making it difficult for consumers to trust your platform. You fixed the problem and saw that your visitors began to move to the checkout option.
Start personalized conversations with customers using smart chatbots
Before COVID, technology was evolving slowly, and people were oblivious to digitalization. As the pandemic spread, technology spread like fire, and now, no one can conceive a world without a digital presence. Fresh market possibilities are waiting to be identified, and cutting-edge technology is the means to capture them.
Chatbots, for example, are automated chat support systems that evaluate a customer’s needs and provide recommendations. These chatbots can be found on nearly every eCommerce website and are getting more popular regularly. Furthermore, they recognize where you left off before and provide suggestions accordingly.
Make use of previous interactions with your customers
Assume the following scenario: Your phone begins to buffer suddenly, and slow internet speed is troubling you. You phone the customer service of your internet provider. They give you some troubleshooting methods that work, and you start enjoying fast internet again. After two months, the buffering resumed and did not stop with the previous steps. You call customer service again, and you get a different agent this time. The agent had no idea about your phone history and wasted a half hour repeating the same processes. When you are unaware of your customer’s past, this is when the problems begin.
A robust customer service management system can assist you in tracking your customers’ history and saving time on redundancy, as seen in the example above. It speeds up the entire customer service process as well, which again delights your customers.
Provider personalized customer service with AM2PM Support
If your business is running short on the time or resources to build a personalized customer service system from the ground up, outsourcing customer service to a trusted BPO partner like AM2PM Support can help you shake things up for the better.
AM2PM Support customer service outsourcing team specializes in providing individualized customer support, answering questions, raising tickets, and handling complaints, among other things required to provide 24/7 personalized customer service. With AM2PM Support by your side, you’ll be able to give a delightful customer experience with high-tech infrastructure in place and a team of specialists working 24/7 to satisfy your customer service expectations. What happens next? Well, delighted customers, more sales, and better business growth for you!