Creating a

Customer Service
Strategy That
Drives Business
Growth
Executive Summary

Companies with a CX strategy report the

We all know that customer service is important.
following benefits:
81% of companies cite CX as a competitive
• Increased customer loyalty (92%)
differentiator.
• An uplift in revenue (84%)
• Cost savings (79%)
For many years, leadership teams viewed
- Dimension Data
customer service as a cost center. With the rise of
product-led growth companies and the wide use of
freemium products as a go-to-market strategy,
great customer service is more important to
reliable business growth more than ever.

This guide will examine why it’s important to

reassess your customer service strategy now, and
what steps to take to ensure your strategy drives
business growth in the coming years.
Table of Contents

Why Reassess Your Customer Service Strategy Now? 4

8 Steps to a Winning Customer Service Strategy 8

Choosing the Right Metrics To Assess Your Strategy 13

Conclusion 14
Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth Why Reassess Your Customer Service Strategy Now?

Why Reassess Your Customer

Service Strategy Now?
It’s no coincidence that the market leaders invest heavily in
improving the experience for their customers. In one study, the ten
most empathetic companies increased their financial value year-
over-year — more than double the bottom ten companies in the
same report. One Bain & Company study found that companies
that excel in customer experience grow revenue 4-8% above their
market.

Ultimately investments that aim to improve the customer

experience will produce a strong ROI for your company.
It’s a huge area of opportunity.

Companies that excel in

customer experience grow
revenue 4-8% faster than
competitors
Source: Bain & Company

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Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth Why Reassess Your Customer Service Strategy Now?

Even when our customer service strategy appears to be working, it’s important to regularly reassess
whether it is helping us reach overall business objectives for the following reasons:
1. Changes in the Business Landscape Are Accelerating 2. Customer Experience is a Now Growth Driver
Even if we have an established customer service strategy that Customer support is now regarded as a growth driver by leading
works, the business landscape is changing all the time, and that enterprises. This is becoming more evident as companies switch
means customer expectations of service are changing too. to PLG & UBP: product and service drive growth, not sales and
marketing (they educate and support).
The rapidly changing business landscape and the uncertainty
created by the tail-end of the COVID-19 pandemic will mean These new roles sit somewhere between support and sales,
customer service leaders must build resiliency and agility into the helping new or freemium customers get the most value from the
customer service strategy – and be prepared to change it at a product and increase their spending.
moment’s notice.

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Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth Why Reassess Your Customer Service Strategy Now?

3. The Operational Excellence Pillars Have Crumbled 4. Customer Experience is Building the Next Generation
of Brands
Traditional management leadership books often discussed three
operational areas of excellence that companies can pursue: pricing, Good customer service is essential if you want repeat customers.
product, or people (service). Someone might buy a product once, but they won’t buy it again
if they had a bad experience, and they’ll warn their friends not to
The thinking was that you only ever have to excel in one of these
as well. Customers will tell twice as many people about a bad
areas to see business success and just meet expectations in the
experience compared to a good one.
other two. If you could excel in two, you’d dominate.
There are countless studies, such as this one from Qualtrics, that
For example, if your airline excelled in price – you offered the
demonstrate that customers who have a good experience are
cheapest flights – people have far lower expectations of the
happy to pay more, are more likely to return, and promote your
product and the service they’ll receive.
business for free to their friends.
If you have the best possible product, or in the case of many
Companies that excel in customer service almost always beat
Telcos, the only product, people will accept higher prices and often
competitors because selling is a people game.
put up with worse support. Some exclusive establishments and
And when you treat people
retailers will even use this ‘velvet rope’ or ‘arrogant staff’ to create
well and enjoy working
this feeling.
with you, they come back
For a long time, this was accurate enough. But customer and bring their friends
expectations have changed. We may differentiate on product and with them.
pricing and adjust our customer service strategy to align with
that. Still, only the cheapest or most in-demand products can
afford to offer poor customer service. There are simply too many
competitors in most industries to risk it.

Page 6
Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth The Best Customer Service Strategy in the World

The Best Customer Service

Strategy in the World
The best and perpetually successful customer
service strategy is to be “customer-obsessed.”

That sounds like a flaky buzzword, and many

companies fail to take it seriously. But one
company has executed this strategy better than
everyone else: Amazon.

Being customer-obsessed means always working to

understand what our customers want and what they
don’t. Customers often don’t even know what they
want — or what they want isn’t directly profitable for
the company — so this approach will serve you best
in the long run.

Amazon has excelled because they’re constantly

listening to their customers, watching how they
behave, and creating products and features that
they know people want – and they’re not shy about
investing to deliver on their promises either.

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Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth 8 Tips for a Winning Customer Service Strategy in 2022

8 Tips for a Winning Customer

Service Strategy in 2022

A customer service strategy is more than simply

setting measures for tasks or deliverables.

It’s actually about creating a mission that your team

can get behind. By determining the values, processes,
and standards for your operation, you can enable and
encourage your employees to work confidently and
cohesively.
1. Start by analyzing data and customer feedback.
Start with what you know about your customers and how
they use your product. Even if you regularly report on KPIs like
customer satisfaction, it still pays to periodically take a deeper
dive into data about your customer’s experience and how it
compares to the rest of the marketplace.
2. Define your values clearly and
support them.
When it comes to customer service success, defining
and contextualizing your values in the context of
daily operations is essential.
That means hiring and training employees to embody these
values right from the start, plus, providing them with the tools and
freedom to deliver on them.

Qualitative customer feedback is just as useful as quantitative Creating a customer-obsessed business involves building a
performance data, so make sure you find ways to integrate that strong culture around your values and ensuring your team knows
into your analysis. Don’t forget to benchmark yourself against what they look like in practice.
others in your industry too.

Page 8
Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth
3. Hire people who share those values.
Finding people who can embody your company values is more
important than ever. In the past year, the contact center industry
has seen a devastating amount of agent attrition. This looks set
to make hiring even more of a challenge in 2022.
Onboarding the right people to deliver on your customer service
strategy means two things:
• Defining those values clearly throughout the hiring process
• Providing the right opportunities and benefits to attract them
Agent expectations are changing, and you should expect agent
engagement to become a key metric for Customer Support
departments in the coming years.
8 Tips for a Winning Customer Service Strategy in 2022
4. Invest in exceeding customer
expectations.
Technology continues to develop at a
rapid pace, and customer expectations
are moving along with them. We have
seen many small startups take on
huge, entrenched competitors because
it takes so long for large enterprises
to react to changes. New competitors
solve customer pain points, and the
incumbents take years to catch up,
if ever.
Constantly playing catch-up to what
customers expect leaves you at a disadvantage.
A better strategy is to invest in innovating and experimenting with
new processes and technology to exceed customer expectations.
This helps put you on the offensive.
Market leaders do this all the time. Amazon is constantly evolving
how customers purchase and interact with their products, using
a mix of feedback and data. Apple’s recent initiatives on iPhone
user data are risky but will quickly become ubiquitous if they pass
the test.
Page 9
Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth
5. Integrate incentives and rewards to drive employee
behavior.
Salespeople typically receive a portion of their salary from a
commission on the products or services they sell. As Customer
Support departments become increasingly involved in driving
account growth at many new-age technology companies,
the enterprises who learn to use incentives to direct the right
behavior from agents will have a huge competitive advantage.
Money is always a great incentive, but paying support agents a
commission can be a very risky exercise without the right sales
compensation software and expertise. People don’t often behave
the way we think they will when we plan out incentives.
However, even a nominal commission payment to recognize a
support agent’s role in account growth could have
huge benefits for employee engagement and
satisfaction in the long run.
There is much opportunity to incentivize
support staff with non-monetary rewards
based on performance and
outcomes. But as a very new
area, be prepared to make
some mistakes here.
8 Tips for a Winning Customer Service Strategy in 2022
6. Look for areas to automate and reduce
bottlenecks.
The benefits of many Artificial Intelligence
and Robotic Process Automation products
have been overstated. But new solutions
are constantly emerging to help us
automate the tedious and repetitive
manual tasks that slow contact center
operations down.
If you’re unsure where those task
bottlenecks exist in your organization,
they tend to be the noisiest departments,
with high attrition and low employee
satisfaction. Anywhere manual admin or
data management is required typically
drains resources.
Automating your processes will give your team
a buffer so you can react to issues faster and
adapt service provisions to meet rapidly
changing customer expectations.
Page 10
Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth
7. Use data to demonstrate value.
One crucial aspect of creating a customer service strategy is
knowing how to demonstrate its impact on the organization.
Decide what type of data you need to collect, and ensure your
sources are reliable and well-integrated. To prove value, be sure
to tie customer satisfaction to customer lifetime value or account
growth.
8 Tips for a Winning Customer Service Strategy in 2022
Once you have that, drill down into highlights or lowlights of
the customer experience and tie them to revenue generation
wherever possible. Ask questions about key points where the
availability and effectiveness of customer support drive long-term
customer behavior, such as:
• Does speed of resolution for customer issues impact total
account spend or customer lifetime value?
• How many issues occur before a customer leaves/stops
buying?
• How does customer satisfaction impact customer retention?
• What’s the average length of time a customer is willing to wait
for service, and what happens when we beat/miss that?
• What events can cause a customer to leave your business?
• What key events cause customers to upgrade or return to your
business?
If you can design a customer service strategy
and communicate how it drives revenue to
executive leadership, you can secure the funds
to invest more, which allows you to create more
value for the organization and your team.
Find out how call-back technology
instantly improves call center CX.
Page 11
Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth 8 Tips for a Winning Customer Service Strategy in 2022

8. Set a budget for experiments

D I D YO U KN OW?
The best leaders are always thinking of ways to improve business
results. But many fail to prioritize funding to implement them. Call-back technology is quickly becoming the
new standard for contact centers. By
Every customer service budget should have a line for
experimentation and innovation. Its size will depend on your
eliminating the need for hold time, you can
ability to prove value. That said, even a small budget can help drastically improve customer satisfaction
you make headway. A great place to start is exploring new along with other key performance metrics.
technologies and tools that have the potential for cumulative
returns or overall cost savings.

Researching and forecasting the potential impact of your

experiments is critical. Don’t expect to succeed every
time — the most important part is understanding why
a certain approach didn’t work. You may be a few
adjustments away from success!

R E L ATE D R E AD I N G

The Contact Center Playbook

for Improving Customer
Satisfaction

Page 12
Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth Choosing the Right Metrics to Drive Your Customer Service Strategy

Choosing the Right Metrics to Drive Your

Customer Service Strategy
TI P

Managing data is one of the more challenging aspects of contact Customer Satisfaction and Employee Satisfaction
center leadership. You may have years of historical data logged, are the two most important metrics for measuring
but lack the time or resources to pull valuable insights from it. customer service success. This is because they
both impact and are impacted by every
Approach data analysis and setting metrics as an
exploratory exercise. Measure impacts of changes
other KPI in the call center.
made, or initiatives taken under the old customer
service strategy to see what worked and determine
where to invest next.

If you’re developing a customer service strategy

for a product-led growth company or a usage-based
product, look for areas where customer service is
driving increased usage and account growth and
double down on that.

Page 13
Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth A Winning Customer Service Strategy Turns Insights into Outcomes

A Winning Customer Service Strategy

Turns Insights into Outcomes

A winning customer service strategy uses historical customer

and market data to forecast the impact of innovations and
improvements to customer service on revenue. Then, it lays out
the roadmap so you can determine if it’s a path worth pursuing.

Become customer obsessed. Drill into the data you have and
don’t be afraid ask customers for more. Investigate the potential
impact of innovations and set aside a budget to experiment to
see if they can work for you. And make sure you invest in the
people who will ultimately determine the success of any of your
plans: your employees.

R E L ATE D R E AD I N G

The Secret Sauce for Increasing

Customer Happiness

Page 14
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