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Being Proactive

by Michael Barbagallo, President and Principal Analyst, Shenandoah Analytics - July 27, 2011

Being Proactive by Michael Barbagallo, President and Principal Analyst, Shenandoah Analytics, mbarbagallo@hughes.net, +1 (540) 955-3642, www.shenandoah-analytics.com 

A few months ago, the local branch manager of my bank (a large regional bank) gave me a call. He was reviewing my family’s accounts and noticed that the interest rate our line of credit had recently increased. He offered to meet with my wife and me to review our accounts and to go over our options. We accepted the offer and at the end of the meeting (which was on a Saturday morning and lasted about an hour), we had decreased the interest rate on our equity line of credit and merged three loans into one (at a lower interest rate).

The branch manager could have just let the situation remain static and allowed me to continue to pay what I promised to pay. Nevertheless, he believed it was his responsibility to reach out to his customers and ensure that the bank was providing as much value as it possibly could. Furthermore, the entire branch exhibits that level of proactive customer service. I periodically receive calls from others in the bank when there is unusual activity on our accounts or to let me know the ATM at the bank would be out of commission for a weekend. When I walk into the branch, I am greeted with a hello and a wave from the manager (whose office is across from the front door and whose door is rarely closed).

I do not think that level of proactive customer service is a corporate policy or if it is, the policy is not enforced at all. A couple of my friends also have accounts and mortgages with the same bank but bank at different branches. They have never received a call from the bank manager or anyone else at the bank, except to inform them they were overdrawn (note that the bank was not concerned that my friends were ABOUT to be overdrawn). To receive a call back from the branch takes an “act of Congress,” and one friend told me that she was actually informed by the teller that she could have made her deposit from the ATM just outside the bank. Honestly? Do they really want to keep their customers? That friend moved all her accounts and those of her family to another bank within a week and she actually took a day off from work to do it.

In today’s economic environment, attracting new customers is very difficult and holding on to existing customers can be just as difficult. Some companies have found that by reaching out to customers with targeted information is a good way to keep customers from moving to rivals. Such as with my branch manager, reaching out to customers with a value-add product, service, or information builds relationships. Companies that proactively reach-out to customer are seen as partners rather than just vendors.

Proactive customer service is not an off-the-cuff activity and a successful proactive campaign needs to be well-planned and organized. In the example above, the branch manager reviewed the accounts as a normal course of business. He had a certain number of accounts that he looked at each week. Proactive campaigns should also be targeted and not be a broadcast of new products and services. As part of the process, the bank manager contacted customers whose accounts were affected by changes in rates or other bank activity. Finally, proactive campaigns need to provide value. This is the difficult part because value is relative. Calling a specific customer to inform him that he was about to bounce a check is a universal benefit whereas sending a global email about a new service will not provide value to customers who do not have the appropriate accounts.

While enterprises can gain significant benefits from proactive customer service, there are risks. One of the potentially damaging risks of proactive customer service is to over-communicate and be perceived by the customer as a pest. When enterprises over-use outbound notifications and tweets, the messages become annoying, lose all effectiveness, and will eventually become liabilities. Enterprises need to offer customers an opt-in or opt-out processes. Vendors also need to quickly honor customer’s requests to be removed from the contact list. Furthermore, before creating a proactive customer service practice, research and know the local and national laws regarding outbound calling, proper identification, and the rules around existing relationships. The last thing a company needs is to have a proactive campaign turn into a series of complaints to the state business administration or the Federal Trade Commission.

Contact centers can assist companies in creating proactive customer service and in many cases contact centers are the most appropriate entities to build a proactive service practice. Almost all solutions offered by contact center vendors provide tools such as outbound dialers, IVRs with outbound messaging, and email and SMS management solutions that are designed for proactive communication. If the contact center solution does not supply proactive tools or if the budget is too tight to purchase new licenses, a customer list with phone numbers (or email addresses) and time off the phones may be all the information an agent needs. However, in our modern, multi-channel culture, a successful proactive communication practice needs to provide more than just outbound telephone calls. Companies should investigate email, SMS/Text, and social networks when designing a proactive service practice. Customers want to be contacted in the manner they are most comfortable and will move to vendors who give them what they want.

In a world where customers are hard to come-by and where there are few costs to customer when moving from vendor to vendor, it is important that enterprises remind their customers that they still are around and that they can still provide additional value. It cost the bank manager very little to make a phone call and arrange a meeting, but he gained quite a bit of good will simply by reaching out and asking how he could help.

 
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