Using customer data to create a personalized customer experience is one of the top customer service trends of 2023, according to Forrester. By organizing data from all customer interactions such as purchases, queries and issue resolutions, your brand can deliver personalized CS throughout all stages of the customer journey.
Kustomer research also shows 84% of CX leaders predict personalization will become more important over the next three years. Now is the time to ensure your customer experience strategy includes data driven personalization.
In this blog, we explore:
- The importance of using personalization in customer service
- How to create data-driven personalization
- The benefits of data-driven personal customer service
- Personal customer service examples
Why Is It Important to Use Personalization in Customer Service?
Personalized customer service is when a company, customer service agent or chatbot provides tailored experiences to each individual customer, based on their specific preferences, behaviors, wants and needs. For the modern consumer, expectations are growing. Delivering excellent customer service isn’t just about responding when there’s an issue, resolving it and moving on.
With a personalized customer service approach, brands should constantly seek to understand customers, anticipate their needs, and address them across all of an organization’s functions. If a customer reaches out to engage in a support conversation, you should know what issues they’ve had previously by leveraging the right helpdesk and CX solution. This can help you capture and track all of this data so it’s right at your fingertips and make delivering a personal experience much more attainable.
When you have meaningful conversations with customers throughout the customer journey, you’re creating personalized experiences for them that enhance their overall trust in your company. Therefore, weaving personalized customer service into your strategy is not only beneficial to the well-being of your customers, but also to the bottom line of your business.
How to Create Data Driven Personalization
To personalize a customer’s experience, you have to know the customer — and that requires data. We’ve broken down some important steps in creating a data driven personal customer service experience.
Get Adoption From C-Suite
Before creating a data driven personalized CS strategy, get approval and adoption from your C-suite. Begin by working closely with individual stakeholders who support your ideas, and present them with research on how providing data-driven personal customer service will help your company meet modern customer expectations.
The goal here is to convince your company’s leadership that personalized CS is a vital part of the health of your entire business. Although they may already know this, everyone might have a different perspective on how best to provide a personalized CX. Focus on getting stakeholders to understand the benefits of data and personalization, and make sure to show them the positive results of those benefits.
Gather the Customer Data
To create data driven personalization you need the data. By collecting, analyzing, and putting the copious amount of customer data that is available to good use, you can create customized experiences for your clients. So how do you get this data and where do you keep it? That’s where a modern customer relationship management (CRM) system like Kustomer comes into play.
Analyze the Data to Gain Insights
Businesses shouldn’t just be collecting customer data — they should be using it. When using a CRM, your company can leverage data insights to personalize customer service and improve the customer experience.
Think of a CRM as your eyes and ears throughout the internet: it can capture client information through an embedded form on your most visited website blog; it can search social media and sort leads based on user activity; and it can optimize your website by giving intel on which keywords are driving the most people to your specific webpages. This is all personal customer data that can be used to anticipate customer needs and provide proactive, tailored customer service.
Create Your Personal Customer Service Strategy
You have your data and you’re ready to use it; now it’s time to build your personal customer service strategy. Once this data is collected, it’s up to you to analyze it, understand what’s working and what’s not working, and shift your personal customer service strategy to meet the needs of your clients.
Here are a few more essential tips to consider when building your strategy:
- Collect and learn from feedback: CX is not a set-it-and-forget-it process. It requires constant re-evaluation and improvement. The needs and expectations of the modern customer are constantly shifting, and it’s important to stay on top of these changes and adjust the strategy accordingly by welcoming customer feedback and implementing it.
- Offer communication options: Each customer has unique preferences for communication, and they expect to select from different options. Providing seamless communication methods across multiple channels, from phone to live chat, ensures that your customers are able to engage with your brand in the method that is personalized to their preferences.
- Use an omnichannel approach: While customers may have a communication channel of choice, don’t expect them to only contact your business through one method of communication. Modern customers connect with brands asynchronously, whether it’s tagging your company in their Instagram story one day or emailing with questions about their recent purchase the next. Show customers an omnichannel approach, and you increase the chances of reaching them and making it easier for them to reach you.
Pair these tips with collecting customer data, reviewing customer history, and leveraging these insights to create an elevated customer experience, and you’re on your way to a solid personal customer service strategy.
Benefits of Data-Driven Personal Customer Service
By using real-time, contextual data to deliver meaningful experiences you can personalize the way your company connects with customers and reap the rewards. Below are some of the benefits of doing so:
Reduced costs: Data-driven personal customer service can help businesses identify areas where they can streamline their operations and reduce costs. For example, by automating certain customer service tasks, businesses can free up staff to focus on more complex issues.
Heightened customer Insights: Personalized customer service allows businesses to collect more detailed information about their customers, such as their buying habits and preferences. This information can be used to improve product development, marketing strategies and customer service operations.
Elevated CX: Integrating data-driven insights in your overall customer service strategy also offers customers a more refined CX. Your customer’s buying journey will be fully tailored to their individual wants and needs, making them more likely to complete their purchase.
Improved customer satisfaction & loyalty: Uniquely tailor experiences to customers should have an impact on how they view their company – you should see an improvement in customer satisfaction that leads to increased customer loyalty and repeat business.
Personal Customer Service Examples
Modern, data-driven personalized customer service can vary depending on the nature of a business or its customers. Below we’ve outlined some of the different ways brands can leverage data from customer service conversations to create personalized experiences across a variety of industries and blur the line between sales, marketing and support.
- Personalized recommendations: An online retailer can use data such as past purchases, browsing history and search queries to make personalized product recommendations to individual customers. For example, if a customer has previously purchased a particular brand of running shoes, the retailer can suggest other similar products or accessories that may be of interest to the customer.
- Targeted promotions: A beauty company can send targeted promotions to customers based on their purchase history and interests. For example, if a customer frequently purchases skincare products but has never bought makeup, the company may offer a discount on a new makeup line to encourage the customer to try it out.
- Customized product offerings: A car dealership can use data such as a customer’s past car purchases, driving habits and lifestyle to create customized car offerings. For example, if a customer has a family of six and frequently takes long road trips, the dealership may suggest a minivan or an SUV with a spacious interior and good gas mileage.
- Personalized communication: A hotel chain can use customer data such as communication preferences and previous stay history to personalize communication with customers. For example, a customer who frequently stays at a particular hotel may receive personalized welcome messages and recommendations for nearby attractions or restaurants based on their previous stay preferences. This communication can be delivered through various channels such as email, chatbots or social media.
There are many different personal customer service examples than the ones outlined above. However, the center of all of them is providing customers with a great experience tailored to their unique preferences, interests, behaviors and needs.
