How to Personalize the Customer Experience

If you ask anyone about their best customer experiences, they typically include an instance where their preferences were retained or needs were anticipated – a florist that reminded them of an upcoming anniversary or birthday, a restaurant that remembered a favorite meal, or a coffee shop that had their order memorized. Any experience where customers’ predilections are remembered and catered to will instill an enormous amount of loyalty. This is true especially in today’s connected world where consumers have access to an unprecedented amount of information, allowing them to make better, more informed decisions. As a result, consumers now expect a more personalized and relevant experience due to the sheer amount of information available to both the consumer and to companies. Unfortunately, businesses have been unable to meet this demand. According to a Janrain Study, 74% of online consumers feel increasingly frustrated when the content presented to them does not address their needs. Furthermore, the study asked participants what they would be willing to give up to receive appropriate content based on their personal interests and found some surprising results. Percentage of consumers who would be willing to give up:

• 28% – Social networks for a week
• 25% – Chocolate for a month
• 21% – Mobile or smart phone for a day
• 17% – Having to use only a landline phone for a week

This research revealed an incredible opportunity for businesses who personalize their customers’ experience to earn and retain customer loyalty. In order to deliver that great customer experience, businesses need to modernize and connect all the main touch points that interact with the customer, including Marketing, Sales, and Service. Customer Service alone accounts for ¾ of all interactions with customers, making it the cornerstone for customer loyalty. Every interaction with the customer is a chance to gain more personal details and to cater to their interests. Once you have gathered that information, it’s time to take action on those details. Here are some things you can implement to make your customers know you are paying attention and value their business: Intelligent Routing – routing customer interactions to the agent that handled their last interaction or based on the products or services they have purchased helps build a relationship as well as reduces wait times Screenpop – helps agents identify customers quickly by automatic lookup of their record based on their phone number or call attached data gathered through the IVR or by doing a data dip before routing the call HOW TO SIMPLIFY YOUR CTI PROJECT Activity History – having quick access to know what products a customer has purchased, which ones they have shown interest in, even website browsing history, can better equip an agent to upsell or cross-sell successfully Interaction History – similar to activity history, having quick access to the interaction history of a customer lets an agent infer that a customer may be frustrated because they have called into the contact center 5 times within the past 2 days or know that this customer typically interacts with the company over email but for some reason they are calling now, some contact centers even pair up potentially frustrated customers with agents that are better equipped to handle escalations Social Media as a channel – responding to social media posts is a good way to let people know that you are listening and amplify a positive post or reduce the effect of a negative post Omni-Channel – agents benefit from Omni-channel from an agent experience perspective but customers benefit because organizations can data mine against more comprehensive customer information, this eliminates siloed information by creating a single view of customers across channels LEARN MORE ABOUT OMNI-CHANNEL