Today’s customers want a more personalized experience when interacting with brands, yet most are reluctant to share their personal data. This creates challenges for customer service teams, who must address individual questions, complaints, and requests in a personal way, all without any background information about each caller.
What can be done to provide a more personalized experience at the contact center? Although call whispers and similar technologies feed some insights about the needs of the caller to the rep, this is not enough if the rep really wants to build immediate rapport with the customer. In order to fully grasp the situation, they need to understand both the type of call, and the type of person on the other end of the line.
Creating customer ‘personas’ could be the solution. These are the various profiles or personality groups which make up your customer base, and, once identified, allow you to make targeted judgments about the kind of service they may be looking for. Research from ResponseTap has discovered that with the right data and insight, most customers can be linked to five typical buyer personas:
- The Socialites
The majority of online shoppers (38 percent of survey respondents) are ‘Socialites’, i.e. those who like to compare and take recommendations from online communities before making their final decision. Socialites are emotionally engaged with their shopping and are likely to be put off by poor quality service.
They will reach out over the phone to rectify any issues, before going public on social media to rate their experience.
- The Perfectionists
These people know exactly what they are looking for, will conduct extensive personal research prior to purchase, and expect brands to deliver their promises at every point along their purchasing journey.
In order to impress this group, you need to be acutely clued-in to their specific needs, otherwise you risk losing them over the phone.
- The Ain’t Got Timers
This group is super organised and cuts to the chase with their purchasing decisions. They naturally use the contact center to check details, stock, shipping info, or to simply purchase over the phone if the website is taking too long.
In order to satisfy these customers you need to have staff who are both well-informed, have good common sense, and are able to answer questions directly without passing the caller from pillar to post.
- The Panic Buyers
These people are typically a flustered bunch, who forgot about (or simply left till the last minute) making a purchase. 50 percent of last minute purchases are made online, however, in order to speed up the researching and decision-making process, they often reach for the phone to get some quick answers.
They might ring to check stock before traveling to a store, or to check shipping information and times.
- The Impulsives
This group, which tends to be women (62 percent), make purchasing decisions in a split second. 56 percent of impulsive buyers like to stay up to date with latest trends, and love to purchase products as soon as they are released.
They will most likely know which product they are after and tend to order online. However, they are always looking for the easiest way to purchase, and may seal the deal over the phone if it proves more convenient.
A polished contact center sales rep is unlikely to have their work cut out with this persona.
Conclusion
Knowledge of personas can be incredibly valuable to brands who are unable to track their customers. Use them as a starting point to consider the dynamics of behavior across your audiences.
Your specific audience base is likely to differ slightly from the five outlined in this article, however, once your contact center staff begin to associate the types of people that call with the personas you specify, they can start to tailor the customer experience and improve first call resolution rates.
Delivering each persona a fulfilling experience across each encounter with your brand, and especially through the contact center, increases the likelihood of purchase and brand advocacy.