Proactive Customer Service Part 2

To build off of my previous post about proactive service, I recently had a conversation with a company and they were interested in how other companies are using the idea of Proactive Customer Service in their organizations. They wanted some practical approaches. I told them that there a number of different ways people are getting into using Proactive Service and it just depends on what technology you may already have in place and what type of interaction you are looking to have with your customer. Let's look at a few examples.

Proactive customer service dates back a few years with companies and public institutions using dialing systems to make outbound calls to people in order to make them aware of some type of information that was important to them. The most common form of proactive service that most people know is the phone call that comes from the local school district that tells of a day of canceled school for the kids. But there are a number of other types of organizations that have used the dialing method to reach out and touch their customers. Hospitals call back after surgery to check in, the doctors office calls a day ahead of time to make sure you keep your appt, the cable company calls the morning of your appt to make sure you will be around etc.

But now, many other companies are jumping into the fray with newer technology that allows for a different type of experience around proactive customer service. Whether it be through the SMS channel, email, or the website, most everyone now is using service as a way to head off calls to their call centers or create a much more positive customer experience. Electric companies are sending SMS or Email to their customers when a storm rolls through to update them on status of electricity so that people don't call. Commerce sites on the internet are using Click to Call or Click to Chat as well to be proactive with potential issues that customers might call about. Regardless of the channel, people like to know when things are happening that might effect them and typically react in a positive way when they are kept in the loop.

So, many companies are using the technology to reach out and touch their customers before they lose them or before they make a call to the call center with a problem. But is it really working?

The straw poll that I have taken after talking to a number of leaders in a number of different industries is that, indeed, proactive service absolutely makes a difference. But each person also makes sure to caveat the statement with a word of advice.

To a person, each leader that I spoke with made sure I knew that the key to making the project go well is to make sure that the target audience is very much encouraged to participate. Some of them even go as far as automatically enrolling people in programs while then asking them after the fact if they would like to be enrolled or not.

That is how important getting the audience engaged is to these projects. Not only does the customer engagement lead to a better and smoother operational environment, but it also leads to a much better customer experience at the end of the day. We all want to be "in the know" and the more companies reach out to their customers with information that is timely and relevant, the more positive the customer experience will ultimately be.

Another story on my next post from a real world example of a great use of proactive service.