Complete Guide: What Is Personalized Customer Service?

In a world that’s heavily focused on utilizing digital technology and social media to create convenient experiences for consumers, making your customer service communication lines as simple, seamless and as tailored as possible to specific members of your audience is a must. A personalized customer service strategy is a great way to make a measurable impression on consumers. In fact, according to Kustomer research, 77% of consumers like when businesses communicate to them in a proactive and personalized way. But how can you make each digital customer service encounter a customized one? What is personalized customer service, and how can you deliver personalized customer care that’s beneficial both to your customers and your business? Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of a personalized CX and how Kustomer can help your business realize them.

Diving Deeper: What Is Personalized Customer Service?

In this article, we highlight personalized customer service and how it works well with an omnichannel approach. Artificial Intelligence magazine defines personalized customer service as the assistance provided by a customer service agent that is tailored to each individual customer, based on their specific wants and needs.

This approach doesn’t bring in more business by chance — There’s a psychology behind personalized customer service. Research shows that customers are keen on receiving a personalized experience, as it helps them remain in control of customer service conversations, reduces feelings of stress and defeat, and helps them feel more empowered as a customer. With more than 50% of customers admitting that they’ve had to re-explain issues to customer service agents in the past, a bad interaction can have a major impact on business, causing customers to feel an instant disconnect that leads to distrust and uncertainty with the brand.

Warch: Psychology of Personalized Customer Service – Video

What Are the Major Benefits of Providing Personalized Customer Service?

When it comes to customer relationship management, weaving personalized customer service into your strategy is a must for many reasons. It’s not only beneficial to the well-being of your customers, who could potentially become returning customers, but also to the bottom line of your business. Let’s take a closer look at some of the advantages of personalized customer service on both ends of the spectrum:

For the Consumer

From adding more depth to initial conversations to increasing trust and satisfaction with a brand, the benefits of customer service personalized to the consumer can change the way they look at your business. Here are a few benefits of using a personalized customer experience to engage with your audience.

1. More meaningful conversations. When customers enter a conversation with an agent, they want to get as much out of the conversation as they can. Agents who are willing to dive deep into an issue and curate a resolution that’s specific to the problem at hand provide an unparalleled experience for customers that can have a major impact on their impression of your brand.
2. Enhanced trust in a company. It’s natural to want to spend more time with someone you trust and can confide in. The same idea can be used in a customer service encounter between an agent and a customer. As perfectly stated by HubSpot, “loyalty is rooted in trust, and customers can trust real-life humans more than the ideas and values of a brand.” When customer service agents take the time to analyze a personal customer issue, it shows an element of caring and understanding that fuels trust and compassion from the other end. Essentially, customer support naturally builds customer loyalty.
3. Improved overall satisfaction with service. Customers expect quick, reliable service when they reach out to your agents. HubSpot found that 90% of customers say an immediate response from customer service agents is important or very important when they bring a question to the table. What qualifies as an “immediate” response? Research shows that customers want to be answered in 10 minutes or less.

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For Your Company

Brands can see a major return on investment when they incorporate personalized customer service into their strategy; the customer isn’t the only one who benefits from improving the customer journey. Below are three ways customer service personalization can improve the performance of your organization as a whole:

1. Consistent business. When it comes to making a customer feel valued and appreciated, personalized customer service goes a long way. Pleasing a customer does more than put a smile on their face — it often leads to return business for you. Research by HubSpot found that 93% of customers are more likely to become repeat customers at a business that provides optimal customer service, and 90% agreed that they would at least be more likely to purchase more items from said company.
2. Increased customer loyalty. In our research, we’ve found that curating a personalized customer service experience over one that’s less customized could be the resolution to a disconnect; if a customer doesn’t feel heard in their conversation with one of your agents, they could be less likely to show brand loyalty and more likely to purchase products and services from a company that will listen to what they have to say.
3. Better leverage to improve your current strategy. Because you’re creating more personalized experiences for your customers, you’re getting a better idea of not only what they expect out of that initial conversation, but what they anticipate to get out of your business as a whole. While you may be the expert on your business, the people who purchase your products or services are the same people who are fueling your company with revenue, and their opinions are invaluable. Understanding customer expectations is the first step to meeting customer needs.

How Kustomer Can Help You Deliver a Personalized Customer Service Strategy

Creating and delivering a top-notch customer service experience for consumers should be top of mind for your company. If your current strategy doesn’t seem to have the impact on your customers that you’d like, Kustomer can help.

Optimal customer service is more important than ever, and learning how to customize each interaction with your customers is imperative to your success. Our on-demand webinar, Importance of Personalizing Your Customer Service, can teach you everything you need to know about orchestrating a personalized customer service strategy. In this session, we explore why customers value personalization, challenges that may occur that can keep you from delivering this type of customer service, and real-life applications that showcase how Kustomer has transformed strategies for clients in the past.

Retailers in the modern era have a unique challenge: They must support the “always connected” consumer. Find out how real brands are leveraging Kustomer to orchestrate experiences that connect, engage, and convert shoppers into lifelong brand advocates.

If you’re looking for a more straightforward approach to successfully achieving personalized customer service, our How-To Guide: Customer Personalization, is a helpful tool.