Retailers use personalisation to connect with customers
VoiceSage’s John Duffy shows how creating strong personalised connections with customers is helping brands better realise their goals
UK organisations are getting much more personal in terms of their outreach with digital consumers. And they also seem to be getting a lot better at measuring the impact of that contact.
These were among the main conclusions of a market analysis exercise carried out in partnership with the UK Contact Centre Forum [http://uk-ccf.co.uk]. The 2017 UKCCF Proactive Customer Service Survey also shows that proactive service is starting to play a central role in forward-looking Customer Experience (CX) strategies.
In 2012, only 30% of companies asked by analyst leadership group Gartner expected to compete for business primarily on the basis of delivering superior customer experience. When the analysts went back to ask last year, they found that number had risen to 90%.
Clearly, then, delivering great CX is an important factor. But how is that translating to company strategies? We received responses from over 150 practitioners that provide some intriguing insights to that very question.
The survey user base included everyone from accountancy services to building management systems, social housing and more, while in the retail sector we got answers back from professionals in retail energy, online retail, financial products, cruise holidays and car rental.
When asked whether they record customers’ journeys, going so far as to map out what an ‘ideal journey’ might look like, the majority – 56% – report that they do map the customer journey, while a further 20% said that they were working on doing so soon. Only 24% said that they did not map it.
But how personalised is this mapping that is being carries out? Tailored incentives such as special offers, preferential upgrade prices, loyalty bonuses – are they being used to enhance customer experience? We wanted to know, as the Gartner CX statistic tells us brands are highly aware of how important that factor is.
We asked if organisations were able to deliver personalised communications to improve customer experiences. The answer: personalisation is genuinely happening – a high percentage, 69%, confirmed they do offer personalisation, while a further 21% offer limited personalisation.
When asked whether organisations proactively contacted their customers, the answer came back most definitely ‘yes’, given 75% said they are. Meanwhile, the vast majority – 87% – think that proactive outreach is worthwhile, as it will save budget by curbing inbound contacts, potentially equating to millions of pounds saved each year for a large customer contact operation.
Channel mix
How is that proactive work being carried out? Even in 2017, the phone is the biggest channel, and the most popular choice for proactive by 60% of organisations, followed by email (26%), post/letter (8%) and SMS (6%). In non-proactive outreach, phone scores even higher, at 75%, and email, 18%.
Over half of respondents (51%) use SMS, while 72% said they thought the use of text for proactive contact to be either ‘Effective’ or ‘Very Effective’.
Of those who’d used SMS as a Proactive Service tool, 30% said that response rates are getting either ‘Better’ or ‘A Lot Better’. Interestingly, the results show that 53% of people that don’t currently use SMS thought that, if they did, it would be Effective or Very Effective.
Meanwhile, a very high 71% told us they are convinced SMS technology would mean less in-bound calls for their teams, while greater use of the combination of text plus social media would mean agents could juggle more interactions.
Finally, 19% say that they have used Automated Voice, with 58% reporting it to be ‘Effective’ in achieving what they wanted, while 75% say that response rates after its introduction are getting ‘Better’ or ‘About the Same’.
Personalisation is the norm
Overall, the research demonstrates that personalised outreach is increasingly the norm. Brands are also willing to embrace proactive techniques as a way to improve the customer experience. Meanwhile, new technologies such as SMS, voice and social media are gaining momentum, as they are a proven means of allowing contact specialists to handle more calls more easily and more cost effectively.
The author is Enterprise Sales Consultant at customer contact technology services specialist VoiceSage [www.voicesage.com]
Download the full 2017 UKCCF Proactive Customer Service survey report here [http://uk-ccf.co.uk/the-2017-ukccf-proactive-customer-service-survey/#sf-{}]
