The truth about customer empathy and why it matters
Practicing customer empathy leads to better business results and brand loyalty. Discover the touchpoints necessary to understand consumer emotions.
Persistent customer profile management (CPM) is the secret to high-class customer service. If you’re looking to deliver a a great customer service experience that boosts revenue, loyalty, and your brand’s reputation, CPM is the key.
Right now, improving the customer service experience is having a much-deserved moment. There was a time when customer service was seen only as call centers and chatbots, or a reminder of “what we’re not doing right” (and therefore, customer service outcomes and feedback would stay hidden within an organization.) But businesses are finally recognizing their service team as being a critical piece of the CX puzzle. In fact, service teams are often the primary face of their brand post-purchase.
And so brands are looking to step up their customer service game.
Five-star customer service requires empathy, which comes from a deep understanding of the customer. And companies have plenty of customer data to help get them there. What they need is to turn that data into actionable insights. And that’s where customer profiles come in.
Customer service and customer profile management: what you need to know
Customer profile management describes the process of collecting customer data and turning it into useful, user-friendly customer profiles. Collecting data for data’s sake isn’t helpful, it’s hoarding. But transform it into actionable insights, and you can become an effective, data-driven organization.
Service teams can reap huge rewards from high-quality profiles, including higher customer satisfaction. And since 75% of organizations can connect high customer satisfaction to revenue growth, that could be a big win for the bottom line.
Helpful tools for your Customer Profile Management
Well-designed customer profile solutions tap into cross-channel customer data. That’s key to leveling up your customer service experience and your overall customer experience.
With access to data-driven insight into individual customers and the big-picture trends, your service organization will be able to:
- Build a deep understanding of customers in-context
- Optimize your service channel strategy
- Deliver proactive service based on segmentation and automation
- Identify potential issues so product teams can get ahead of them
- More accurately measure service success
Resolve issues faster with a deep understanding of customers
Persistent, comprehensive customer profile management builds empathy into the customer service experience. Agents can see the whole picture of the customer, beyond their service ticket history, such as:
- Where they are on their customer journey
- Their preferred channels for communication
- How long they’ve been a customer
All of that could help them resolve issues faster and more effectively.
For example, seeing that they’ve reached out multiple times across different channels might signal the agent to escalate the issue.
Think of a travel agent who knows you care more about being on a direct flight with no connections than you do about what time you arrive at your destination. They’ll give you better flight options than someone who doesn’t know all that. Similarly, when service agents understand the customer’s preferences and priorities, they’re better able to deliver tailored solutions.
50% INCREASE
in service agent efficiency.
See the (ungated) results HERE.
Customer Data Platform: Simplify handling customer data
Optimize your channel strategy based on where and how customers seek out service
Managing customer profiles can appear complicated and feel intimidating. Once you implement a strategy, things will immediately begin to make more sense. Customer profile management pulls data from every customer channel. AI and machine learning allow the system to sift through all that data at scale and identify trends in a way that humans can’t.
When you pull all that data into a single place, you get a wide view not only of your customers but of your channels, too.
You can use that data to see where and how customers are engaging with service channels and allocate resources accordingly. Long-term, you can design a channel strategy that meets customers where they are, not just where you think they will be.
Use segmentation and automation to send proactive, personalized communications
Customer profile management compiles and cleans up all your customer data, enabling more accurate and effective audience segmentation. We frequently talk about that benefit in the context of marketing, but it can be an effective customer service tool as well.
For instance, you can set up an automated email to be sent to customers after buying a particular product or service that points them to a helpful resource before they need them. Or, if your company sells smart, connected products, you can reach out about scheduled maintenance based on the customers’ usage.
What does customer aftercare mean | Definition, examples, benefits
Customer aftercare refers to post-sale customer service. It includes all of the steps, actions, communications, and processes that take place after a sale to keep customers satisfied, engaged, and loyal.
Getting ahead of issues before they arise is the ideal. And the less work a customer has to do, the better.
Alert the product team about recurring service issues
Along those lines, having access to big data and the ability to identify trends could help nip bigger product issues in the bud. If your service team notices that a lot of customers are reaching out about a particular issue, you can adjust your service strategy to address it. That may mean adding a self-service page to the website if it’s an easy fix.
Or, for bigger issues, that may mean letting the product team know early so they can address it in future models.
You don’t have to stop at issues, either. The customer service team has a unique pulse on how customers actually use your products and services, and what features are most important to them. Those insights can inform big-picture product and strategy decisions for your company and be a great tool to improve customer service.
How to learn from customer buying behaviors
The right customer profile management strategy will help you measure the impact of your service organization. When you can look at trends in customer feedback, customer lifetime value, customer sentiments, and more, it’s easier to measure the long-tail impact of your customer service team. It can also lead to interesting insights.
For example, you can start to notice trends in CSAT (customer satisfaction) scores over time, breaking it down by audience segment, service channel, or even product. You can drill down and see which service channels resolve issues fastest. Maybe you’ll even discover something that causes you to adjust how you define service success.
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Consistent five-star service driven with customer profile management
Customer service is a vital part of the customer experience. It can be a determining factor of the longevity of a customer relationship, or the coal mine canary signaling issues that need to be addressed.
To get the most out of your data, and enable your service teams, you need a solution that delivers persistent, dynamic customer profile management, pulling data from different channels and departments and creating insights into customers’ intent and preferences. That way your agents can understand not only the issue the customer is having but the customer themselves.
