Service Untitled

Yesterday I stated (rather boldly) that you could boost your bottomline by being proactive with your customer service. I stand by that and will even support that statement today.

Here are the ways the 5 companies/situations I mentioned could help the companies either make or save money:

1. If Lexus can fix the problem for an in-warranty car before it becomes serious, it could save them thousands in part replacements.
2. The web hosting company not only builds a better relationship with their customer, but prevents possible outages and downtime, which can be costly to web hosting companies.
3. The email company could identity a problem and fix it before it becomes a disaster (no email for a week!) and/or can see if the customer is having trouble, has switched to a new provider, etc.
4. If the customer is evaultaing the software and can’t get a feature to work, the chances of them purchasing goes way down. Proactive customer service can help make that purchase more likely. Plus, if only a knowledge base link is sent, the interaction isn’t that expensive and could probably be automated.
5. If the customer isn’t using the more powerful or unique features of the software, they are more likely to defer to a competitor. Explaining what those features are and even guiding the customer through how to use them can help keep customers and let them get the most out of your product.

And the Dell/HP scenario with the bad hard drive? There are benefits for the companies there, too:

• It takes a lot less time to backup a hard drive before it dies than it does to spend all the time trying to get the data back after it dies.
• The customer learns a lesson about the importance of backups and how close they could be to total data failure without actually having the negative experience (which they very well might blame HP or Dell for – even if it isn’t their fault.)
• If the computer is out of warranty or the item isn’t covered in warranty, the company can sell the customer a new hard drive.
• The company builds a relationship with the customer and helps promote the image/feeling that the company is there for the customer and aims to make their life easier.

All of these boost the bottomline.

What do basically all proactive customer service expeirences have in common?

• They help improve customer loyalty and the customer relationship. This is the huge one from a customer service perspective.
• They help fix problems or address concerns before they become more serious, costly, and/or time consuming.
• They combine high touch and and high tech.
• Employees are able to spend their time helping customers before they get mad, angry, upset, frustrated, etc.

It’s been a while since I’ve added a new category to Service Untitled. However, yesterday there was a new category added and it’s all about proactive cusotmer service. It is something that I am going to try and talk a lot more about.

Little Things, Big Differences are about improving customer service with minimal change, today. Becoming proactive is about changing customer service with a lot of (but well worth it) change, tomorrow.

Now, go be proactive.