How to create a customer service strategy for personalized customer service

In today's world, there's a heavy emphasis on how you deal with your clients and make them feel cared for. Given the immense influence of growing digital channels of communication, it is a must to keep your customer service accessible, user-friendly and personalized.

In fact, customer service is one of the key differentiators. Stats show that 93% of a company's customers are more likely to purchase again if they think their customer service is on point.

However, many times, businesses fall for some of the most common customer service mistakes and end up having to work hard to turn the experience into a positive one. If a consumer has a bad experience, it can take up to 12 great ones on average to make up for it.

So if you're looking to grow your customer base and retain them, avoid common mistakes by creating an impeccable customer service strategy that strives to tailor the customer experience to the individual customer needs.

Wondering how to go about it? Continue reading, and we'll guide you into creating a personalized customer service strategy in six simple steps.

Know your target audience

If you don't know your target audience, how can you expect to solve their problems? If you want to provide personalized customer service, carry out research on your target audience. Find out the following things:

🔎 Who they are: Their age, location, gender, demographics

🔎 What they like: Their hobbies, interest, needs, preferences

🔎 What problems they face: Their common complaints, demands, issues

Once you know your target audience, you'll understand how you need to contact them and speak to them.

For example, customer care inquiries from a younger demographic may be more likely to be sent through social media or messaging applications. On the other hand, your elder clientele may feel more comfortable contacting you by phone or email. This knowledge will help you when you have to determine other things, as we will discuss below.

Do competitor's analysis on customer service strategy

You should ideally carry out a competitor analysis right after you've decided upon the business name and idea. During your competitor's analysis, you want to find out who they are and how they provide customer assistance for their business.

A good way to carry out a competitor's analysis on customer service strategy is by first figuring out who your competitors are. This can be simply done by a Google search with keywords of products or services you sell, and the top results will show whom you're competing with. Check out their website and social media to see how they engage with the customer.

This research will reveal where you can step in to fill the gaps and what weaknesses you can play at to overcome the competition in the market. If you want to provide the best customer service possible, we suggest you continue to keep an eye on your competitors over time as well.

You will need to know what your competitors are doing in terms of their customer service to:

👉 Maintaining a competitive edge and providing superior service to your clientele

👉 Staying abreast of developments in your field of work

👉 Testing out novel strategies competitors use that may provide positive results for your company.

Define your communication channels

You want everyone to know that you want to stay in touch with your customers, so it's important you open various channels of communication with them.

Since you've already done thorough research on your target audience, you should know how they prefer contacting customer support. There are four main channels through which customers can reach out to your support staff:

📞 Phone calls

📥 Emails

📲 Social media

💬 Website

The more options for communication channels you provide, the more convenient it is for your customers. However, you must ensure that you can maintain prompt responses and revert back through these channels.  

For example, implementing a live chat on your website in addition to the more traditional channels, is a great solution for customers to reach support agents and get assistance really quickly.

Even if the chat option is being ruled by a bot that answers to the clients - it is already a great solution that helps to improve customer experience and helps to improve your customer service strategy.

Find ways to interact with your customers

Good customer service doesn't just mean responding to customers when they reach out. It also means reaching out to customers and engaging them with your business. There are several ways to do it. For example, by maintaining a social media presence, setting ups meet-ups or remote events, and organizing live commerce or consultation sessions.

Finding ways to interact with your customers is a solid part of personalizing your customer service, and it's a must in your strategy. Start getting creative on how you can connect with your customers and see how you stand out from your competition.

Provide content that is important to your customers

One of the most effective content forms for online retailers is interactive content. It aids in getting attention, retention and advancements toward sales.

Content like this fosters readers' confidence in your brand and encourages them to stay with you. Especially, content pieces that are conversational in tone and style offer engaging and dynamic user experiences. This ensures continued patronage.

So include a strong content strategy to support your customer strategy. Blogs are not the only kind of content that we're talking about here; you may also want to consider:

• User-generated content
• Interactive videos
• Chatbots
• Online polls
• Surveys
  
  

Want to know more about these content ideas? Read more about the best  5 interactive content ideas that will help your e-business grow.

Define your values and how they connect to the customer

Uniting people under a shared set of principles and establishing clear brand values strengthen businesses. Everything from naming your brand's products to employing new employees to engaging with consumers may be handled by the brand as a single, unified entity.

Values are crucial, but they may be difficult to define precisely, which is why so many businesses fall short. You may run the risk of producing incongruous encounters and not connecting with consumers on a deeper level if your brand values are not well-defined

When they can't be put into action, they are harder to practice and understand by your staff and customers.

Once you've defined your brand values, train your customer service team to always convey them with Super C's of Customer Service. This will ensure you succeed at providing a positive and personalized experience to the client.

Conclusion

Success in eCommerce businesses relies heavily on the quality of service and support provided to customers.

Customers may be retained by personalized customer service and the provision of products that are specifically tailored to their needs. When you have extra time on your hands, you may give greater attention to your strategy for customer care.

With print on demand business model, you can automate manufacturing, order processing, and delivery to free up your time. It is one of the best ways right now to run your business successfully in the eCommerce industry, as you can put all your time and energy into marketing and customer service.