Service Untitled

Glenn posted an interesting discussion on his blog about greeting e-commerce customers. I’ve written about utilizing technology to help personal the customer service experience before and Glenn brought up another great aspect of the use of technology in customer service.

When you have the information, make use of it. Use it to personalize greetings on your web site, to offer customers promotions on when their birthday is coming up, etc. The information is only valuable when you make use of it. Without actually going out of your way to use the data you collect, it’s worthless. As Glenn pointed out, there is a lot you can do with the data to make customers happier and to make money.

As the Internet has gotten more advanced, personalization on web sites has become commonplace. A web site saying “Welcome John Smith” is no longer a big deal. Even a web site saying “Welcome John Smith, here are some products you might find to be interesting” isn’t anything to write home about. A company that consistently identifies customers and personalizes the customer service experience for them is something unique, though.

If John Smith calls or emails in, and the representative knows who he is and can address him by name and be familiar account history, that will help to improve the customer service. Verifying John’s identity with his email address or phone number is technologically possible and fairly reliable. It’ll also make John feel more appreciated as a customer. Then, when he visits the web site and is also greeted by name, it just adds to the collective (and now positive) experience.

Technology is a great asset to customer service. I don’t think high tech can replace high touch in customer service, but I certainly think they can work well together and one of the many ways they can do so is by personalizing and customizing the customer service experience.