Ways to Monetize Your Customer Support

The dynamics of customer service are rapidly evolving. Andy Yost of CMO predicts that “2018 will be the year of servicing consumer needs before they even arise.” It seems that businesses are listening to him.

Many brands are optimizing their support operations to “deliver impactful customer experiences.” Although well-intentioned, the efforts are misplaced. This blog post argues that instead of chasing customer service at all costs, business should instead focus on monetization.

Your support department can be transformed from a cost center into a revenue generator without any detrimental effect on customer service. In fact, going agile will not only improve the customer experience, it will save you money and drive revenue.

Adopting agile has become essential because cloud-powered subscription economy is gradually eroding customer loyalty. Instead of buying from a brand, consumers shop from multiple brands, sometimes simultaneously.

In this blog post, we will explore five ways to go agile and monetize your service functions. The methods have been divided into two categories: Direct and Indirect.

Direct Ways

Charge for Support
If your company sells products in bundles that are regularly configured to match the client base and usage patterns, convince them to pay for support. Include assistance into the bundles and price it as much as is needed to run the support department. There are multiple ways to do this. Here are two examples:

Scenario 2: Differentiate by the Mode of Support

Scenario 1: put a cap on email and support

Scenario 2: Differentiate by the Mode of Support

Explore Opportunities to Promote Exclusive Support

If you don’t wish to put a cap on support, you can analyze case logging behavior patterns and use the data to cross-sell and upsell.

The data will help you figure out if you are making profit or losing money on a customer type. If you are burning money due to excessive support requests, you can try to sell a support package. In the long run, adopt a policy to encourage all your customers to upgrade to exclusive support which can be made available for a small, additional cost.

Indirect Ways

Increase Product Awareness
Leverage email content, call responses (IVR), and SMS case notifiers to introduce new products and offers to your customers.

Upsell and Cross-Sell on Your Self-Service Portal
You can promote upgrades or cross sell without distorting the user experience if your customers log cases on a portal.

Let’s suppose that a customer is looking to claim a warranty on his or her device and an upgraded version happens to be available. You can offer to upgrade at an exclusive discounted price right on the portal.

Reduce Attrition
This technique will work specifically for ISPs whose offerings are bundled on usage rates. If you find that one of your customers’ data utilization is low, you can suggest them to move to a less expensive package. In contrast, if a user regularly exceeds their FuP, you can suggest them to upgrade at a discounted price. Both approaches can reduce the churn.

Takeaway

It doesn’t matter if you are a small business or a large corporation — you cannot afford to slack off on customer service. It is king. But delivering great experiences doesn’t have to cost a lot. In fact, you can earn from your support department. This blog suggests five ways to do that. Adopt them to lower your expenses and increase revenue.

Looking for more unconventional ideas to save money and strengthen your brand using salesforce service cloud? Let’s Discuss.