If there’s one thing we embrace at Coveo, it’s that we can all learn a lot about our customers by going beyond the customer journey and taking a close look at their behaviors and actions. After all, it’s those interactions that allow us to meet their ever-elevating expectations in personalized customer service. Customer data and feedback help us understand individual customer needs so we can deliver a truly tailored experience.
Personalized customer experience (CX) is the practice of tailoring interactions, content, and offerings to meet the unique preferences and needs of each individual customer. Companies use customer data, in-session behavior and other signals – combined with AI and machine learning – to personalize a customer’s buying experience.
Why Is It Important To Deliver Personalized Customer Service?
Customer preferences for contact channels are continuing to evolve. In a global study of over 28,000 consumers by XM Institute, 62% of consumers prefer using human-mediated channels for personalized customer service. XM Institute defines “human mediated channels” as: “chat with a person on a computer, talk with someone on the phone, and meet with someone in person”.
Consumers’ least favorite support experience? Chatting with an automated system. Only 10% of respondents in the XM report prefer using chat with an automated system. Self-service options on mobile and computer are gaining traction, especially among younger consumers aged 18-34, reflecting changing customer behavior and expectations.
Our own research backs this up. In Coveo’s 2024 CX Industry Report, we asked consumers whether issue complexity made a difference in using digital self-service versus assisted support. 35% of 4000 respondents said they prefer to talk to a human for all issues, regardless.
But just as businesses can learn a lot from their consumers, so too can we learn a lot from each other when it comes to creating a more personalized customer experience.
How To Deliver Personalized Customer Support and Services?
There’s a clear trend among companies that lead the pack in great customer service: they put individual customer needs first.
They’ve renounced the traditional service structure and support experience that focuses on product lines and reoriented their operations to put their customer at the center. They’ve eschewed a siloed and segmented approach to customer support delivery in favor of one that’s relevant, coherent, conversational, and connected from their customers’ point of view. This approach prioritizes customer satisfaction by addressing customer expectations head on.
That can be challenging considering many organizations have grown with product at the center. At a recent industry event, Mark Floisand, Coveo’s former SVP of Product and Industry Marketing said, “So, as they think about the reorientation of putting customers at the heart of this, it’s very often an adaptation and a strategic change that a lot of companies have got to do.”
Tech companies already well-entrenched (blue dots) in one industry area are beginning to expand into related areas (red dots), up-ending the customer service status quo.
“Got to do”? Yes-because this approach isn’t just a good idea. It’s also a means of survival in a landscape that’s becoming increasingly crowded with large tech companies that specialize in serving customers the way they want to be served-with hyper personalization.
With companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft moving into industries beyond their home base, if you will, it’s clearer than ever that competition — and inspiration — can come from anywhere.
Delivering personalized services means taking traditionally siloed customer interactions and reorienting them around individual preferences and needs. You’re anticipating customer needs before they even voice them. Do this by:
- Integrating customer data from all touchpoints to create a holistic view of each customer
- Empowering each support agent with tools and training to access and interpret customer insights on the fly
- Developing flexible product bundles or service packages that align with individual customer needs
- Using predictive analytics to anticipate customers’ needs and actions
- Moving beyond scripted responses to foster genuine, personalized conversations
Let’s look beyond the confines of one’s own industries and look at others, learning how to offer personalization to customers — at scale. What this looks like varies by industry, company, and audience, but it typically includes elements of individual customer support, personalized recommendations, personalized support, and a focus on meeting customer expectations.
Relevant Reading: See How Much AI Can Save You in Support Costs
Four Personalized Service Examples By Industry
Insurance: Decluttering the Complex
Sometimes, less is more… even when it comes to buying insurance. From established players like Geico and Progressive to the new entrants like Insurify and Lemonade, “they have really taken a very clean, web-centric approach to engaging with customers,” said Floisand. Their examples illustrate the potential of a well-executed website personalization strategy.
Hyper personalization is a trend that’s being embraced by insurance companies. According to NTT Data, personalized marketing actions and tactics contribute 40% more revenue than one-size-fits all approaches. It includes strategies like tailoring premiums to customer behaviors and risk profiles, offering discounts, and customizing policies.
That means taking products that have traditionally lived in their own separate worlds and reorienting them around a customer’s preferences. Bundles, for example, are one way to integrate customization into service offerings available upfront without asking customers to dive into every option on their own to figure out customer preferences and individual needs.
Relevant Reading: Blueprint to Personalized Digital Experiences for P&C Insurers
“We’re seeing this unification of product lines around people-a fundamental rethinking in terms of the digital customer experience to make it, frankly, fun again,” said Floisand. “It’s not just about coverage — it’s actually about looking at your overall lifestyle and understanding where insurance can play and support in a very forthcoming and suggestive way, and hiding the silos, the systems, the complexity that are associated with dealing with these things.”
Wealth Management: Tailoring Your Recommendations
What you need from your bank account today may be different from what you need from your bank account tomorrow, or even 10 years down the road. And it’ll be different from what another potential customer may need. This variability underscores the importance of personalized support interactions that adapt to a changing customer relationship and new customer expectations.
That’s why the most successful contenders in wealth management have invested in the ability to build a personalized customer experience around individual recommendations for products , services, and content based on who their customers are and what they need right now.
“What we see in wealth management overall is that rethinking of product lines and reorienting those around customers themselves,” said Floisand, “making it very easy to cross-sell, upsell and package them, and tailor them based on what they know about us as customers, making those recommendations tailored to us and indeed even to prospective customers.” And those product recommendations can be tailored using customer data already present across organizational systems.
Healthcare: Responding to Emerging Needs
There’s no denying the healthcare industry has changed dramatically since the pandemic — health insurers and providers know this all too well.
Keeping up with the individual needs of customers drove more players to think about the best way to address customers and deliver more personalized customer service. Those who were most successful turned to online solutions with AI-powered analytics and predictions that automated their personalization efforts — all within a single, unified platform. This can be helpful on both the consumer and customer service agent side.
Whether it’s dynamically populating the topics of greatest interest like telehealth services or connecting members to the right care providers, “the data under the hood is pre-empting and dynamically changing to give people the most relevant user experience and most relevant information based on their ever-changing healthcare needs,” Floisand said.
Relevant Reading: Blueprint Personalized Member Service for Health Insurers
Manufacturing: Minimizing Customer Effort
How can your company serve your customers (or customers-to-be) with exactly what they need — without making them jump through hoops to find it? Look no further than the manufacturing industry, where leaders have mastered the art of customer engagement by serving up relevant information almost effortlessly, even for first-time visitors with no purchase history or customer information tied to them.
Think auto equipment manufacturers that can show you a fully tailored list of parts based on one input: a VIN. Or a computer manufacturer that lets customers facet their search to home in on categories that matter most. Or a footwear manufacturer that only shows you the running shoes available in your size. And then imagine if all of this data could be carried forward to the next search, purchase, or customer service interaction. It’s an aspect of customer care that puts the customer experience at the forefront of everything.
“The effort is around minimal customer effort,” said Floisand. “What you’re seeing is a real focus on making it simple for people to find the information they need, and really to be able to leverage that data, both inside and outside of the organization to personalize from the very beginning … whether or not you know that person.”
Relevant Reading: Give manufacturers the 24/7 dealer portals they expect
Minimize the Cost-to-Serve Curve
Floisand put forward a challenge to viewers-how to take all of these relevant search examples and holistically combine them into a unified personalized customer service experience.
“Not just channel on channel, not just website, not just mobile app or mobile site, or in the contact center itself,” he said. “But how do all of these things join up?”
He put forward the idea of the ‘cost-to-serve curve:’ whether answering a question about how a product might work, or helping them understand a healthcare issue, what’s your company’s overall cost to serve a potential customer? And more importantly, what can be done to improve the personalized experience?
Because humans are better equipped for one-on-one service for issues requiring a creative response, a unified content index can enable better self-service by helping customers and agents capture, crystallize and circulate knowledge.
Better self-service leads to a better customer experience, and an overall better, long-lasting relationship. With both existing customer data and new data collected through customer interaction, it’s possible to personalize for both a known or anonymous customer.
Are you ready to put your existing content to work across all of your customer service touchpoints?
Dig Deeper
Want to see how specific companies are approaching these trends? Watch the on-demand Thrive with AI: Maximize your digital CX for ROI.
Most might think of customer service as post-purchase issue troubleshooting, but it can really be much more. Customer service agents are brand ambassadors — learn more about how AI can enable them to help grow your business.