One of the latest and greatest topics to hit the call center industry is Proactive Customer Care (PCC).  I’ve seen lots of articles defining what it is (“a business strategy that makes consumers’ lives easier by addressing issues before a problem or a need arises,” says Donna Fluss and Gary Schwartz in the July/August issue of Speech Technology) and lots of arguments for how much time and money it saves.  However, I’ve not read anything yet about how you actually perform PCC and since a friend of mine recently experienced PCC done poorly I thought I’d share my thoughts.

One of the most obvious examples of PCC that has been used for years is notifying credit card customers of unusual card usage.  There are lots of benefits for the credit card company and the customer for doing this, like security and time and money saved.

I think anyone with a credit card would agree that finding out there’s been unusual activity on their card is urgent.  So when my friend received a letter in the mail from his credit card company stating there had been unusual activity on his card he called the 800 number in a panic.  After finding out it was a false alarm, he asked the agent why they mailed him a letter instead of calling.  The agent investigated and found out that because he had opted out of some other service he had also been opted out of receiving telephone notifications.  How the two services related neither the agent, my friend, nor myself could figure out.  Thankfully the agent straightened everything out and my friend no longer has to worry about finding out his card number may have been stolen a week after it happened.

The moral of this story is that PCC is a great concept, but be sure you have the proper business rules and opt-in/opt-out features in place for getting in contact with customers.  Think through the various scenarios you want to provide PCC for and think about how customers will best receive that care.  Otherwise your company could wind up looking a bit foolish for doing something like my friend’s credit card company did.

About Camille: Camille is a Marketing Communications Specialist at Inova and graduated from the University of South Florida in Tampa. She loves watching USF football, spending time with friends and family, and walking her dog, Lexi. You can contact Camille at camille@insideinova.com.