If we consider what customer service looked like at the onset of the pandemic – with most businesses seemingly taking the phone off the hook – it’s amazing to realize how it has evolved, and how vital it has become. The customer service of the “new normal” has been elevated to an art unto itself, dramatically changing the relationship between businesses and their customers. Successful brands now realize that customers must be provided with an empathetic service and being proactive is a powerful way to achieve this goal.
So where the pre-pandemic customer service model was “reactive” – meaning acting in response to a situation rather than creating or controlling it – the evolution of customer service now demands that before the customer even seeks support, proactive service will identify and resolve issues. This requires an ability to consistently anticipate your audience’s needs. Sounds like it might require a crystal ball, right? Wrong. This is where AI and analytics can support the success of customer service departments, allowing them to acquire insights about their customers, control the conversation, and have more meaningful interactions.
Let’s be clear, however. Being proactive does not mean spamming, which might be the takeaway by some before putting enough thought into the concept. Mass messages with an element of personalization don’t qualify as “proactive” interactions. Proactivity requires that businesses evolve and truly get to know their customers in a more meaningful way. With these types of insights, organizations can be alerted to specific issues involving their customers, manage those customers’ expectations, and get down to the real business of problem-solving. This means acting preventively, which is a style of customer service that today’s savvy and sophisticated consumer has come to expect.
The path to the future of customer service is built on creativity, analytics, and purpose. When COVID-19 broke in 2020, companies around the world pivoted towards e-commerce. Incentivized by the newly homebound consumer, businesses focussed on staying open by re-imagining their products and services within the online space. As a result, US e-commerce sales doubled from 16% in 2019 to 35% in 2020. This staggering increase is estimated to have been the equivalent of approximately 10 years’ worth of growth in just a few months and reinforces the concepts of creativity, analytics, and purpose. If “purpose” equals a proactive customer service model, brands that subscribe to this post-pandemic CX upgrade can deliver potent, real-time value to the customer journey and impart experiences that resonate more deeply with consumers.
One way to aim high and set the gold standard for customer service is to look at BPO outsourcing companies as potential partners in your customer-centric strategies. Considering that companies need to build an emotional connection that anticipates customer expectations, partnering with a business process outsourcing company like Anexa could be a stroke of genius. Anexa can help your business deliver on ambitious aspirations by representing your company as you would – implementing insights, first contact resolution and going the extra mile for each one of your customers. We understand that customer service is more than a feeling, more than a department, and more than a phase in the customer journey. It should be the culture of your organization, and with the support of our customer specialists, it will be.
Contact Anexa today to find out more about our customer service specialists.