Customer service organisations are discovering how to increase loyalty through customer value by systematically enhancing experiences that drive tangible business outcomes using value enhancement tactics to drive customer loyalty and retention.
While a low-effort service experience is still critical to customer retention, in today’s environment, the use of ‘value enhancement’ can increase the probability customers will increase their wallet share and spread positive word-of-mouth while driving overall loyalty.
Service organisations looking to capitalise on customer interactions that impact loyalty through ‘value enhancement’ will ensure customers leave an interaction with more confidence in their purchase decision and better able to maximise their value of the product or service.
Gartner research identified the impact of value enhancement activities on customer loyalty that showed some customers were more likely to advocate, renew and spend more after experiencing a value-enhanced service interaction.
Further research shows customers who experience a low-effort service experience in resolving their issue are 61% more likely to stay with the company. On the other hand, a high-effort customer service experience drops that probability to only 37%.
Yet 40% of customers will still leave a company, even if they get that high-quality service experience, so to avoid leaving that 40% on the table, customer service needs to focus on ‘value enhancement’ which impacts customer perceptions of the product or offering.
Brent Adamson, distinguished vice president for the Gartner Customer Service & Support practice says “Most often, companies find ‘value enhancement’ activities fall under the customer success team…customer service can leverage these same types of activities in the service experience to help drive up customer loyalty.”
Activities that drive “value enhancement” and demonstrate value to customers during service interactions can be done in many ways. Gartner research has shown these 5 effective ways to drive value enhancement:
- Validate customer purchase decisions. Reassure the customer that their purchase decision was a smart one.
- Anticipate customer needs. Predict what features your customer may find valuable in the future based on their current needs.
- Help customers achieve a goal. Outline the product features a customer should use based on their goal for partnering with you.
- Educate customers on better uses. Rather than focusing on how customers have been using the product incorrectly, teach them how best to use it.
- Advise customers on new uses. Introduce the customer to newly introduced or untapped product features.
Recent Gartner research also suggests that it is only about 15% of customer interactions that currently produce value enhancement, yet that there are many more which could. The opportunity for value enhancement often depends on the reason for the initial contact, with inquiry calls offering the greatest chance to enhance the value the customer perceives, whereas complaint calls offer the lowest likelihood.
Depending on the mix of calls, value enhancement could possibly occur in 35–50% of conversations.
Notably, these activities can take place in both live and self-service channels. By operationalising value enhancement, service organisations can double or triple the frequency with which value enhancement occurs. To do this, businesses will need to predict the opportunities (identifying which customers are open to value enhancement, to what degree and when), matching customers to the best resources (e.g., specialised reps), and scaling delivery through automation.
At Baibi, we help to implement the mechanisms to integrate with your existing systems and use automation, AI and business intelligence data to discover these ever-valuable opportunities to drive value enhancement. Baibi provides a way to connect, analyse and report on the data that your business has been missing.
