One of the biggest challenges that companies navigate is the ability to connect dots between customer service and revenue. For this reason, it can be tough for executives and team leaders to determine exactly how to make investments.
This pattern results in what a recent Harvard Business Review article calls “short termism.” The idea, according to the report’s author — Rob Markey, partner at Bain & Company — is that “under relentless earnings pressure,” executives and managers “feel cornered, obliged to produce quick profits by compromising product quality, trimming services, imposing onerous fees, and otherwise shortchanging their customers.”
Markey’s research has found that companies with the highest customer satisfaction scores grow revenues at roughly 2.5 times the level of their industry peers, which translate into 10-year shareholder multipliers of 2-5X.
Especially in the midst of our new digital acceleration era, investments in customer service are crucial given the number of competing priorities that everyday people are navigating. Personalized experiences provide a low-hanging area of opportunity for companies to meet their buyers’ needs while impacting customer loyalty metrics.
The following insights will help your team identify the right strategies for your unique business case.
1. Generic communications have become obsolete
According to one recent study of United States consumers, 90% of respondents described irrelevant messages as “annoying.” In another study, 65% of internet users in the U.S. and U.K. shared that they shop using product recommendations,
In other words, if you want customers to stay engaged with your company, products, and value proposition, you need to offer a tailored experience. Especially given record-high burnout rates, customer success touchpoints are valuable opportunities to meet people where they are in an increasingly omnichannel landscape.
As marketing technology evolves to incorporate more machine learning and automation capabilities, the advantages of personalization will become even stronger.
The bottom line is that people want communications that meet their needs on an individual level. Irrelevant messaging isn’t just ineffective — it has the potential to be a major deterrent to business success.
2. People want answers in real-time
As digital interactions speed up, it’s not enough for companies to simply deliver personalized, tailored content. Consumers are demanding that companies provide support in near real-time.
According to one study, 90% of consumers rate an “immediate response as important or very important” when they need help — and 75% of people expect answers within five minutes.
For these reasons, live chat is a cornerstone to strategic personalization. The best way to respond to peoples’ questions, thoughts, and feelings is to simply ask, be available on standby, and troubleshoot issues.
Real-time personalization, through live chat, also functions as a data collection mechanism to systematize and scale future communications. What questions are people asking? What can customer success teams do more effectively to prevent issues ahead of time?
Demands for real-time communication put a lot of pressure on time-strapped customer success teams. But the technology, at the same time, offers mechanisms to empower support teams to become more strategic.
3. Personalization data is a high-performance investment
Following the digitization era of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies find themselves needing to rethink their core business strategies. According to research from IDC, 65% of the world’s GDP is set to be digitized by 2022. From now until 2023, digital transformation investments are set to top $6.7 trillion.
Within this context, companies will need to create immersive experiences that compete for mindshare — at any given time, a competitor is likely to be only a few clicks, taps, or swipes away. Not to mention, digital environments are inherently distracting, which can make it difficult for a person to focus on an objective.
To counteract this trend, one of the most impactful steps for companies to take is to build more data-driven, customer-centric thinking throughout the organization. The key is to integrate relevant insights into marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
What do your audiences care about most, and how can your business best support them?
A focus on this priority will shine through at every touch point — especially during 1:1 conversations. At any given time, it is important that your customer success teams recognize that they are talking with multifaceted human beings who have a history of engaging with your brand.
Personalization can help to refine your marketing picture and develop a higher degree of empathy in an increasingly automated world.
Last but not least
Remember that when you build a digital experience, the end result is a virtual space. Even if you’re not engaging with your customers in real life, you are still engaging with their emotions and goals.
Moments of delight and connection are only going to become more important as digital fragmentation begins to accelerate. Information overload is the new normal, and people have seemingly infinite choices when it comes to where they invest their time and resources.
Personalization can help ensure that relationships remain well-fortified and strong.
A simple solution that you can utilize today is a contact center software solution that integrates with a CRM so reps can seamlessly deliver personalized customer experiences.
See how RingCentral’s customer engagement solutions can help you offer a more personalized experience to your customers.
Originally published Jun 07, 2021, updated Dec 30, 2022
