Artificial Intelligence has had a massive influence on everything related to business. It’s not just the tech industry that has felt its impact, but also pretty much any other industry thanks to the versatility that is so characteristic of AI. Likewise, the B2B sector has also been affected by the spread of AI and its common usage by business owners and marketers alike.

The current marketing environment has changed drastically. Customers are often in need of assistance and expect smooth interactions with the company. Hence, leading businesses are focused on using technology to humanize their labels and develop service models to withstand this ever-changing business environment. Surveys show that 86 percent of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.

Industry research has shown the increasing popularity of self-service from both company and customer perspectives. One report from Software Advice validates that self-service really does have a positive and measurable impact on both quality and quantity of customer service issues requiring an agent’s attention. Over 75% of respondents confirmed that First Level Resolution, First Contact Resolution, Cost Per Contact, and Cost Per Incident were improved.

Gone are the days of siloed customer support, successful organizations can and must collaborate to truly enhance the customer experience.

Self-service is still good customer service. Offering an option for customers to help themselves can give your customer support reps more time to focus on improving the big-picture aspects of your service strategy. And the right customer support software makes it easy to give customers what they want when they need it.

A customer can be very satisfied with the products and services of a company, but that doesn't mean they’ll remain loyal. Competitors can attract them by offering better customer benefits, including proactive customer support. Customer experience is decisive for both satisfaction and loyalty. However, most companies do not offer great customer experiences.

“While virtually all customer success management initiatives start out as “churnfighters,” you can’t stop there. The challenge is to gather and use the data from every interaction to move your team out of reactive mode and into far more effective proactive stances.”1

In Part 1 of this blog series we introduced the new imperative for customer support and customer success—achieving success for your customers…and for your bottom line. The first way to do so is to ensure product adoption and use. The second way is to use B2B customer support tools to proactively strengthen your customer relationships and reduce churn. That’s what we explore in Part 2. Reduce Churn and Prove Value Overall support demand grew by 10.6% in 2020.

That’s according to the Customer Success Association who tells us that being able to prove your worth in both directions is the most crucial aspect of determining success. Monitoring the return on investment (ROI) for the customer is therefore a vital capability, and in the other direction, driving recurring revenues for your company. The CSA advises that Value Management functionality should also include.

A playbook for delivering the ultimate customer service experiences The customer experience is the new marketing. That’s what Micah Solomon, best-selling author, customer service industry consultant, and Forbes contributor, asked as he opened a recent webinar based on his new book, Ignore Your Customers (and They’ll Go Away): The Simple Playbook for Delivering the Ultimate Customer Service Experience.