Making customer segmentation work for you and your customers

Customer segmentation is a key issue for any Customer Service Manager, as it involves the identification, analysis and profiling of their most valued – and also least valued – customers. By segmenting in this way, you can start to provide a more personalised service and provide your customers with a much more satisfying overall experience.

Plainly any segmentation approach has an impact across all areas of sales and marketing, but particularly in the contact centre, which for a growing number of customers is their primary interface with you. It is essential that any customer segmentation strategy is fully integrated with your CRM strategy.

From a contact centre perspective there are a number of key issues that need to be addressed when segmenting customers and then determining how to treat each segment.

• The impact of introducing customer segmentation on your business, for the contact centre and, most importantly, for the customers’ experience and overall customer satisfaction. 
  
• Who is calling? Currently only some 60% of callers can be identified by their CLI (Caller Line Identification) information, therefore some other form of ID – such as an account number or password – is needed to activate any segmentation in the contact centre. 
  
•  The contact centre needs real time access to data, as customers can easily migrate from one segment to another – perhaps by making a high volume purchase and immediately becoming a ‘Gold’ or ‘Premium’ customer. 
  
•  What are your segmentation criteria based on: customer spend, potential lifetime value or service related? You need to consider what each customer could be worth in the long term to get the best benefits from segmentation.

Clearly segmentation is a complex issue for contact centres, however there are a number of key technology components that can combine to make effective segmentation a reality. These include CRM and marketing databases, the practical use of segment-specific call-in numbers, IVR and other self-service approaches and voice print techniques that can be used to identify callers.

The broad take-up of enterprise CRM systems over recent years has been a key enabler for effective customer segmentation. CRM data can be used to trigger the initial real time routing decision when a customer first calls in, and also to access all the relevant information about a customer that an agent might need within a call.

For companies, customer segmentation can offer both revenue-building and expense-lowering benefits. However, there’s a balance that needs to be struck between the cost-saving benefits of some IVR applications and the overall customer acceptance of such an approach.

Sabio has a lot of experience and expertise in helping organisations use technology to effectively segment their customers, to the benefit of both the organisation and their customer service. Understanding what works and doesn’t work for the end customer is key for building a solution that delivers real results.