Proactive customer service increases customer satisfaction. However, crucial mistakes are often made during implementation. How can I develop a strategy that benefits my company and does not inconvenience the customer?
Customers often only get in touch when a problem is already acute. In practice, this usually means that the product they have purchased is partially or completely inoperable. The stress level is then already very high. Sometimes customers switch providers straight away without being given a reason.
To avoid difficult situations and prevent customer frustration, the service department should contact the customer independently beforehand and proactively obtain valuable feedback. In this way, a sustainable relationship can be developed to the benefit of both parties.
What are the benefits of proactive customer service?
Proactive customer service provides you with useful information about how customers rate your offering. This also provides you with valuable input to improve it or, in some cases, in good time. toto improve. You know more precisely which problems and difficulties in understanding occur and can take countermeasures in good time. This increases customer satisfaction and customer loyalty to your company.
The service department then no longer just acts as a "fire department" in the event of repairs, but can effectively take care of providing useful support services to keep machines running longer and more efficiently. This is where the distribution of Maintenance, Training courses, Counseling services and more. This opens the door to new business deals in the After-Sales and you can take the decisive step towards service as an independent and profitable business area.
Under what circumstances do customers react negatively to your efforts?
As nice as it may often be when a company works proactively and sustainably to ensure that customers are satisfied with their purchase decision in the long term. Experience also shows that this can be perceived as annoying under certain circumstances. After all, you are not the only provider a customer buys from.
If every machine manufacturer contacts you on a weekly basis and wants to know whether everything is still working, it can quickly get on your nerves. The right time and the right channel are crucial for successful contact. The best time to catch the customer is when they are already looking at your machine. How can you achieve this?
Finding the right time to make contact
For very expensive orders, it is generally not considered annoying if you contact the customer by phone after a while to ask whether everything is to their satisfaction. However, if you have only sold a smaller machine, this effort will probably be perceived as annoying. Here you have to fall back on lower-threshold solutions, such as the classic email asking the customer to rate your own performance. The customer may take the time to do this. However, the best way to find the right time to make contact is to do it yourself.
Attract the customer to your platform!
We can learn from the field of social media communication that customers generally have no problem with companies offering information about their products, solutions in the event of a fault or after-sales services on their own website. However, experience has shown that they do have a problem when said companies start communicating on platforms that belong to the customer (e.g. on their own Facebook page or in forums that are not directly connected to the company).
Even in mechanical engineering, the customer does not necessarily appreciate it when you intrude into their sphere and their day-to-day work without being asked. That's why it's best for you if the customer comes to your platform and you don't have to bother them yourself.
Creating customer touchpoints for proactive customer service
Of course, you don't have to do without the widely used methods for obtaining customer feedback. These include, for example, the aforementioned telephone calls or the provision of rating options, as everyone knows from Amazon or the pizza delivery service. The customer should also be informed about the channels available to contact the service when purchasing a product.
However, there are also a number of more creative Customer touchpointswhich you can use in after-sales to enter into a longer relationship with the customer even after the purchase. If you succeed in doing this, you will have more than enough opportunities to monitor customer satisfaction and promote your other after-sales services.
For example, you could consider setting up a newsletter that informs customers about more efficient or possibly more creative ways of using your product. When creating the newsletter, you can easily include a link to your feedback page. Perhaps you can also offer the customer added value for registering on your online platform when purchasing your product. For example, to manage associated documents there or to be able to access operating information and data on their system.
To make the transition from reactive to proactive customer service, you need to find the right time and the right form of contact. This is crucial to the success of your strategy. That's why it makes sense to offer the customer added value for going to your own platform of their own accord. You may need to create this platform first. However, it does not necessarily have to be developed from scratch. There are already ready-made solutions that can be set up with reasonable effort.
The design and planning of suitable customer touchpoints is essential for building a comprehensive customer relationship in which you can approach the customer with your concerns without being too aggressive. Because when the customer comes to you, it is always the right time to communicate with them.
