What is proactive customer support and how is it different from reactive customer support? What are the benefits of a proactive customer service strategy? How can businesses implement effective proactive customer service and what tools can they use? Let’s take a closer look at proactive customer support to answer these questions and more. Feel free to read from our helpful blogs or jump down to see our favourite proactive support examples.

• What Is Proactive Support?

• 5 Tips for Implementing Proactive Support?

• Why Proactive Support Is the Future?

• Benefits of Chatbots in Proactive Support

• Proactive Support Frequently Asked Questions 

Proactive Customer Support Examples We Love

As customer service evolves and demands grow, companies are establishing new ways of engaging customers before they even make a purchase. Here are some of the newest proactive customer support examples that we love:

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Dynamic FAQs

FAQs are a simple but very effective method of proactive customer support through self-service. Airbnb, for example, has a robust FAQ centre. They provide immense detail on how to book an experience through Airbnb, with a clean yet comprehensive way to answer common questions. Not only is the FAQ page broken out by population, it also offers the visitor — whether guest, host or admin — the opportunity to search for questions via a search bar at the top of the page. Content is presented as a topic-specific long-form article with opportunities for the reader to explore their question further. This type of proactive self-service is precisely what today’s customer is looking for.

FAQs are a simple but very effective method of proactive customer support through self-service. Airbnb, for example, has a robust FAQ centre. They provide immense detail on how to book an experience through Airbnb, with a clean yet comprehensive way to answer common questions. Not only is the FAQ page broken out by population, it also offers the visitor — whether guest, host or admin — the opportunity to search for questions via a search bar at the top of the page. Content is presented as a topic-specific long-form article with opportunities for the reader to explore their question further. This type of proactive self-service is precisely what today’s customer is looking for.

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Automated Chatbots

An automated, AI-powered chatbot can be an incredibly effective form of proactive and personalised support. Starbucks utilises its automated chatbot to prompt users with any questions they may have while also simplifying the ordering process. In anticipation of the possible frustration of waiting in line, the tool also notifies customers when an order is ready, preemptively avoiding the dissatisfaction of the line. 

An intelligent chatbot in the e-commerce space can also improve the customer experience long-term by tracking customer preferences and applying that data in future interactions. Starbucks collects customer ordering preferences and uses them to help them order their favourite drink quickly. This proactive customer support example makes the ordering process so enjoyable and easy that customers will likely come back for more.

Anticipatory Resources

Collecting data from previous customer issues and interactions is essential to developing an effective proactive customer support strategy. The data can be used to identify common issues, and brands can develop resources specifically to cater to those problems, which is what proactive support is all about. 

AT&T noticed that new customers often experienced “bill shock” from not understanding how to interpret their first bill when they received it. Knowing this, AT&T developed a personalised video that walks customers through the process of understanding and paying their bills, which they include a link to in every customer’s first bill. This helps AT&T unclog support call volume at billing time every month and promotes paperless billing — saving both the customer and agent time and stress.

New Feature Tours

Some forms of proactive support can serve double duty by preemptively resolving questions and also promoting a new feature or product.

Trello’s recent redesign shows us that not all product tours should happen during onboarding. In a simple, four-step navigation introduction, Trello is able to walk users through exciting changes and provide suggestions on optimising their experience. In this proactive customer support example, the goal was to get users to switch to the new Trello interface. Though, this proactive strategy is a great example of engaging with users to get them excited about new features.

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Support Statements

Taking initiative in customer support is much more important than attempting to hide an issue that’s come up. Netflix users, for example, experience a total loss of their ability to use the service when video streaming issues arise on the platform. Rather than trying to sweep it under the rug, Netflix proactively releases a statement any time streaming issues take place, making users aware of the outage, sometimes offering all users a credit on their accounts. 

While bad news is never good to receive, customers appreciate it when brands are upfront with them, increasing their trust and loyalty.