Member Article

UK Brands Are Being More Personal And Proactive

VoiceSage’s John Duffy takes a look at how UK brands are taking the personal and proactive approach seriously when connecting with their customers

Proactive customer service is about identifying and resolving customer issues before they actually become a problem – and it is an approach that UK brands are taking very seriously.

The result of the 2017 UKCFF Proactive Customer Service Survey, in partnership with the UK Contact Centre Forum, highlights the fact that brands are getting more proactive and also more personal in their outreach. They have fast realised that reactive service is standard, but service that excels anticipates issues. 75% have said they are already using proactive outreach to customers.

Responses came from a broad range of providers from accountancy and leisure firms to the public sector. Despite living in a digital age, much of this personal contact is still taking place on the telephone.

We have also discovered that contact centres are beginning to see the benefits in mapping customer journeys to improve the customer experience. 56% said they now actively map the customer journey, while a further 20% said that this was a ‘work in progress’. Only 24% said that they did not map it at all.

Surprisingly, nearly 56% of those surveyed said they can give a team member ‘immediate access to previous conversations with customers about the same issue and across all channels’. This highlights the fact that a high percentage of organisations have already deployed integrated information and contact routing systems.

Customer experience is paramount

Offering great service has always been important, but omnichannel and technological innovation is pushing the bar higher. In a 2012 survey, three out of ten companies told analyst firm Gartner they expected to compete for business primarily on a great customer experience. Gartner asked the same question in 2016, and the figure had gone up to nine out of ten companies.

Personalisation is already high on the agenda to offer customer incentives such as special offers and upgrades. 69% of respondents said they offer personalisation, and a further 21% say that they could offer it in limited forms.

Reaching out to customers

It may come as a surprise, but the telephone still remains the most popular mode of outreach for proactive projects with 60% of respondents saying this was their preferred communications tool. This was followed by email (26%), post/letter (7.5%) and SMS (6%). In non-proactive outreach, the telephone came in higher at 75% compared to email at 18%.

We also looked at two emerging Proactive Service channels – SMS and Automated Voice. 51% of respondents currently use SMS, while 72% said they thought the use of text for proactive contact to be either ‘Effective’ or ‘Very Effective’. Of those who had used SMS as a Proactive Service channel, 30% said that response rates are improving. 53% of people that don’t currently use SMS believe that if they did it would be effective.

The survey shows the expanding role of SMS, in particular with those yet to adopt proactive, showing a strong preference (37% compared with 31% for telephone and 17% for email). 71% went as far as saying that SMS technology would mean less in-bound calls for their teams, while greater use of SMS plus social media would enable staff to manage more interactions. Of the 19% that use automated voice, 58% report it is effective for their requirements.

The omnichannel highway

The 2017 UKCCF Proactive Customer Service survey shows that proactive support, the next generation in customer service has taken off, accelerating the omnichannel model. At the same time SMS, voice and social media are being seen as reliable options for call centres to answer queries more efficiently and cost effectively. All positives for further enhancing the customer experience.

The author is Enterprise Sales Consultant at customer contact tech services specialist VoiceSage www.voicesage.com

Download the full 2017 UKCCF Proactive Customer Service survey report at uk-ccf.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by John Duffy .