Want to make every customer feel like royalty? Here are 10 easy, practical ways to provide personalised customer service, with examples you can use today.
Key takeaways:
- Know your customers: Build profiles with personal and professional details, and use them in every interaction.
- Personalise every touch: Use names, preferred channels and history to tailor greetings and messages.
- Be proactive and empathetic: Solve problems before customers ask, and hand distressed customers to a human.
- Follow up and recognise loyalty: Check in after each issue, and reward loyal customers.
- Use technology and keep improving: Combine AI chatbots with a CRM, then measure, gather feedback and act on it.
The old saying goes that the customer is king, or queen. So service providers should make customers feel like royalty. The best way is to reshape your customer service so customers can relate to it. In other words, use modern technology to provide personalised customer service.
10 easy ways to provide personalised customer service
More and more companies use AI to give customers a better, more personal experience. Let’s look at some ways you can do the same.
1. Know your customer
First, get to know your customers. It is good practice to learn their special days and send a personal email, or wish them well during the holidays.
- Gather information. Automated customer service messages can collect it for you. In 2022, only 2% of companies did this. However, that figure is expected to reach 30% by 2025, according to Brian Burke, VP of research at Gartner.
- Create customer profiles. Collect key information about each customer. This goes beyond birthdays and anniversaries to include professional details too. Today’s AI systems can learn, through machine learning, to gather this information and build a profile.
- Tailor every interaction. Use this information to send tailored texts and emails. When customers see personal touches like these, they feel special. And that is what modern customer support is all about.
2. Use personalised greetings
Gone are the days of generic messages on special days. Instead, AI systems now include a meaningful detail about the customer. For example, if you know a customer was promoted, add a word of congratulations.
- Personalised greetings: Did you learn your customer adopted a new pet? Then add a note appreciating their love of animals.
- Use the customer’s name: This is the most important step in personalising support messages and emails. When you use their name, customers feel you know who they are and understand their query. Best of all, an automated system can do this for you.
- An example: Suppose you are an insurance company, and a customer has just had a baby. Your message might read: “Hello Mr Smith, congratulations on the lovely new addition to your family. We’d like to introduce our special education insurance plan, which can help little Michael go a long way and study at one of the best universities.”
3. Personalise your communication
According to McKinsey, only 40% of personalised messages currently feel personal. That is why companies use machine learning to make automated systems more sensitive to customers’ needs.
- Use each customer’s preferred channel. Ask customers how they want to be contacted. If someone dislikes phone calls, ask whether you can leave a voicemail. Or send a text or email, as they prefer.
- Tailor messages to history and preferences. Another McKinsey study found that, in the USA, 66% of customers appreciate well-tailored personal messages. You can tailor these with specific personal and professional details.
- An example: A mobile network can message or call a customer who was just promoted: “Hello Mr Jonathan, congratulations on your promotion! To celebrate, here is an affordable plan with 4GB of data a month and unlimited calls. You’ve been with us for 4 years, and this offer is our thanks for your loyal support.”
4. Provide proactive support
Today, companies need to be proactive. Aim to give customers what they need before they ask.
- Anticipate needs. Good support is not just about fixing problems after a complaint. Instead, anticipate the problems customers are likely to face.
- Offer solutions first. Using customer data and their history with you, solve problems before customers even ask.
- An example: Say you are a telecom company upgrading your systems, which may disrupt service. Ideally, do the upgrade during quiet hours. Tell customers in advance, and suggest they wrap up calls for 30 minutes, keeping the outage as short as possible.
5. Show empathy
When a customer has a problem, whether you caused it or not, they expect empathy at the very least.
- See their perspective. A small problem to you may be a disaster for the customer. For example, imagine a customer in the middle of an international conference call when your network suddenly fails. That could cost them a deal.
- Show genuine concern. Sometimes a customer with a problem needs a human, not a machine. So train your AI system to pass distress calls to a human agent. The agent can show real concern and work with the right people to solve the problem.
- An example: Take the network outage above. You may not be able to fix it straight away. But at the very least, listen to the customer’s complaint. And if possible, offer some form of compensation.
6. Follow up
This matters most after a customer complains and you provide a solution. Once you have done your part, thank them for their patience and make sure they are satisfied.
- Check in after each interaction. Contact customers through their preferred channel to ask if they are happy with your solution. Even when the problem is solved, a follow-up makes customers feel valued.
- Follow up on unresolved issues. If an issue is still open, for whatever reason, stay in touch. This shows empathy for what they are going through. If possible, compensate them for the delay.
- An example: Good support does not stop at the first answer. Instead, make sure the customer is genuinely happy. For instance, in a restaurant, once a guest has had time to taste their food, the waiter or maître d’ should check that everything is all right.
7. Give recognition
This wins more loyal customers than many other support techniques.
- Acknowledge loyalty. If a customer enjoyed your product or service and wants to keep buying, thank them for their loyalty. They will appreciate the recognition.
- Offer rewards and incentives. Rewards are one of the best ways to earn appreciation and loyalty. Make sure they suit each customer’s lifestyle and preferences. The best incentives are free services for a limited time, or a gift they will actually use.
- Examples: There are many ways to recognise customers. For instance, send a personal email or message that proves you value their business.
8. Use technology
Technology has advanced incredibly over the last two decades. Things once seen only in sci-fi films are now real. AI is one such technology, and most companies now use it to improve customer experience.
- Use conversational AI chatbots and CRM software. We have all seen chatbots on company websites. Machine learning lets them do more than pull answers from a database; they build their own knowledge too. Paired with good CRM software, chatbots work wonders for personal service. Customers usually know they are talking to a machine. Still, chatbots can be designed to be engaging and to know each customer’s tastes. To see how this works on WhatsApp, read how to use WhatsApp for customer support.
- Use automation to personalise. Beyond chatbots, use small tools like customer-facing booking calendars. You can also use social listening and brand monitoring platforms, which machine learning software can automate.
- Examples: To thank customers personally, use automated email and SMS, plus automated IVR calls, unless customers have opted out of calls. Ask each customer how they prefer to be contacted. Then combine that with AI chatbots that simulate human conversation. Other AI tools can also deliver a great experience. For a broader view, see top ways online businesses can provide a better customer experience with chatbots.
9. Keep improving
When asked which film was his best, a famous director said, “My best is yet to come.” In other words, there is no limit to improvement, especially in today’s competitive market.
- Measure effectiveness. One of the most accurate measures is a rise in the value of customers’ next orders. If you run an ecommerce site, also track your conversion rate: how many visitors actually place orders. In addition, run sentiment analysis to understand how customers feel. This shows how satisfied they are and how to improve your communication.
10. Ask for feedback and act on it
Measuring is only half the job. You also need to hear directly from customers, then make changes based on what they tell you.
- Gather feedback. A standard method is for the chatbot or agent to ask customers how they liked your service after they contact you. This gives you an honest opinion. If customers cannot chat, send them a link to a feedback form. In an app, add a short feedback page, or simply ask for a rating from 1 to 5. This information helps you improve as you grow.
- Act on feedback. Collecting opinions is pointless unless you act on them. So keep a record of feedback, and improve the areas with the most negative comments.
Conclusion
Competition is fierce in almost every industry. Yet you also have the means to beat it. The modern technologies above will help you win more customers. They will also turn existing customers into loyal brand ambassadors who spread the word about you, which brings in even more customers. So adopt modern tools like AI chatbots and feedback systems. To scale this across your whole operation, read our complete guide to customer service automation.