Customer Service Guide to Revenue Generation

Your contact center plays a pivotal role in delivering great experiences that keep your customers coming back to you time and again.

Yet, like most departments, they routinely find themselves in the tricky position of having to deliver to a consistently high standard while often viewed as a cost center rather than the lifeblood of the brand. While there are plenty of resources available talking about turning agents into sales-minded employees through training programs, incentive structures, and measurable KPIs, the most authentic revenue streams are created through radically personal customer service. If implemented, these simple tactics not only will increase your customers satisfaction with your brand but will also lead to measurable increases in revenue generated from your contact center.

Even your best face-to-face salespeople will find it hard to make a sale without any context about a customer. By providing your agents a single view of a customer’s past orders and brand preferences, they can better understand the likes and dislikes of your customers to make more relevant, and authentic, recommendations.

Knowing a customer’s purchase history helps create personalized experiences that lead to authentic upsell opportunities. For example, if a customer calls in looking for a shipping update on a recently purchased pair of shoes — and you can see that they purchase shoes from you regularly, always in a particular style, and always in white — that presents an authentic opportunity to offer them the upcoming line of sneakers that you know they will love and likely want to purchase early in that moment.

Knowing a customer’s purchase history and preferences in the same view of the conversation also helps mitigate lost revenue from returns. By understanding a customer’s likes and dislikes, your agents can suggest alternative products they know your customers will love while in the middle of processing a return. That way, instead of paying the costs of shipping the return box, you can put that towards the costs of shipping a new item.

For example, if a customer reaches out looking to make a return for a dress they just purchased that wasn’t the perfect fit, your agents can offer a similar style from the summer collection that they know the customer will love — even offering a discount for the replacement item to make the idea of an exchange a no-brainer.

Creating a concierge program that’s focused around your VIPs (customers with the highest lifetime value or brand influence) ensures your top spenders always get the white-glove service that keeps them coming back for more. Simple things like ensuring your VIPs are always connected to a familiar dedicated agent, skipping the line so they never have to wait on hold, and receiving exclusive discounts and perks can create relationships with your top spenders that build irrational brand loyalty.

For example, if a high value customer reaches out, and you notice they have an upcoming flight to Hawaii in a week on a flight with plenty of preferred seats still available, the simple gesture of proactively upgrading their seat while resolving an unrelated issue can be the difference in making an already loyal customer a customer for life.

Stack the odds in your favor by prioritizing customers with high purchase intent to the front of line for a response. The quicker the customer gets their questions answered while still perusing your products or navigating through checkout ensures that the purchase will be completed in real time. Inversely, when a customer is ready to purchase, but is left waiting too long to have their questions answered, they are more likely to push the purchase out to a later date or move on to a competitor where they can get their questions answered now.

For example, if a customer is browsing your online store, finds a dress they love, but chats in with some final questions around cleaning instructions, this is a strong signal that the customer has high intent to purchase the dress. Getting that chat routed to the top of the queue to the next available agent ensures a quicker response time which will help in finalizing the sale.

Identifying high purchase intent doesn’t always have to be reactive. There are instances where a customer may have questions during the online shopping experience yet not feel like going through the process of finding your ‘Contact Us’ page to start a conversation. Instead of missing out on a potential sale due to frustration, automatically prompt a chat window to customers who have been on a high-purchase intent page longer than the norm to connect them with an agent best equipped to close the sale.

For example, if a customer has reached the final step in your online check out experience — but is spending some extra time on the page trying to figure out expedited shipping details — instead of risking growing frustrated and leaving, prompt a chat window to open up asking if you can assist with the check-out and answer any questions.

You’ll often find that your agents are naturally more knowledgeable about certain items or services than others. Play to their strengths by matching customers to the agent best-suited to help them — especially when it comes to complex or expensive purchases. The more knowledgeable your agent is, the more likely a customer will trust their advice and go through with a purchase.

For example, if your customer is looking at snowboards on your website right before they chat in, route them intelligently to the snowboard expert on your team who can provide the best advice on the product. Think of this as the digital equivalent of hiring experts in different departments throughout any retail store.

While getting a customer interested in your agent’s recommendations is certainly an accomplishment, it is ultimately only half the battle — the next part is getting them to complete the checkout process in a way that works best for them. Remove any hurdles to your customer’s purchase journey by empowering your agents to issue payment through messaging channels during the actual conversation without having to prompt the customer to go through your online check-out process or jump on the phone.

For example, let’s say your agent is answering a few questions via chat with a customer who says they are planning on purchasing a product. Instead of closing the conversation and leaving it to chance if the customer will finalize the purchase through the online check-out process, serve up a payment request directly in the context of the chat conversation itself so the customer doesn’t have to take a few extra steps.

As speed and convenience become ever more important in meeting customer expectations, offering more diverse options when it comes to shipping can be the difference maker in a customer choosing to shop with your brand or a competitor. Implementing a strong buy online and pick curbside program appeals to the new wave of consumer expectations, particularly those who want their products within an hour, but don’t want to get out of the car to shop or wait hours/days for the delivery to arrive.

Turn your customer service department from a cost center into a revenue generator with radically personal customer service.

Turn Agents into Natural Sellers
Develop a revenue-minded culture across your service team to capture customers with high purchase intent.

Create a Concierge Program
Assign a focused team of agents who provide concierge-level service to your highest value customers to increase CLTV.

Make Payments Easy
Complete credit card transactions and minimize payment friction on digital messaging channels.

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