How To Use Real-Time Data To Engage Online Customers With Proactive Service

Can you imagine walking into a store and having a clerk approach you knowing exactly what you’re looking for, or where you were before entering the store?  While that type of service is impossible in the physical world, it is possible online with real-time web analytics and interactive help options like click to call and click to chat.

 Sophisticated retailers already use every piece of information they can gather to present customers with personalized marketing and merchandise selections based on their segments and personas.  By using real-time data from each customer, companies can guide a customer to the exact product and service that meet his or her needs. 

Click to call and click to chat deliver cross-channel data passing capabilities that allow companies to target and engage customers proactively based on the online shopper’s context.  These technologies can deliver customer information – including shopping cart contents, pages viewed and recent searches – to contact center agents the moment a conversation is initiated.  This insight into the customer’s behavior can have a profound effect on online sales, provided that companies follow certain guidelines. These guidelines include:

 1)     Proactively targeting “engaged” Web site visitors

2)     Offering the most appropriate contact based on context

3)     Moving shoppers seamlessly across channels

4)     Sharing information from one channel to the next

Companies utilizing these innovative tools deliver personalized cross-channel experiences to increase sales conversions, reduce Web site abandonment and improve service efficiency dramatically.  According to a recent Jupiter Research report, this kind of contextualized approach to online customer interaction has increased conversion rates by as much as 20 percent and decreased handling times by up to 20 percent. (Source: Real-Time Online Interaction Strategies, Jupiter Research, March 2007)

In the customer service industry, call time – for both the customer and the call agent — is an especially strong differentiator.  And when the wait is long, and customers are forced to repeat and reenter the same information, the experience can go from bad to worse in no time.  A recent report from Harris Interactive found that respondents’ key complaints revolved around the perception that companies did not respect their time.  (Source: Customer Experience Impact Report, Harris Interactive, Sept. 28, 2007) 

In those instances where customer contact is desired or required, click to call and click to chat not only offer quality service and increase contact center efficiency, but also help turn the contact center into a sales center by targeting individual customers based on their perceived needs and potential value. This can be done by evaluating individual customers according to customer profile or market segment information.

Many companies do not want to address every customer inquiry with a phone call. Many online companies use real-time web analytics and customer behavior patterns to keep track of their clientele and make personalized offers based on previous actions.  Using this data, companies can create business rules to determine when and where to engage customers with proactive service.  Rules may include:

 ·         Number of items in a customer’s shopping cart

·         Total shopping cart value

·         Amount of time a customer has spent idle on a page

·         Incomplete transactions

·         Customer status/history

·         Repeat use of self-service and search functions

·         Hours of operation or call center availability

For example, companies that segment their customer base into gold, silver and bronze categories can set a rule that presents click to call to gold (high-value) customers throughout their session, but only to silver and bronze customers once their shopping cart value reaches a certain threshold.  Gold customers get the piece of mind of always having the phone option should they have questions, while lower-value customers are channeled to less costly service options like FAQs, e-mail, or chat, unless they meet the shopping cart threshold.

These “scenario-driven” invitations are triggered only when shoppers match certain criteria, allowing businesses to determine when and how to communicate with customers.

By knowing the context of a browsers search with click to call and chat solutions, call center agents are able to alleviate this perception by demonstrating customer knowledge from the beginning.  In fact, one leading online retailer was able to lower call times by an average of 72 seconds per call.  Because of its operational efficiencies, this company’s customer service rating is consistently ranked among the top companies in the world.

It’s no secret that the internet has raised the customer service bar.  Executing a comprehensive multi-channel strategy that creates a seamless brand experience has its challenges but also has its rewards.  Companies that engage customers with proactive customer service tools like click to call and click to chat will be the major benefactors of those rewards.