What Does Big Data Mean for Customer Service and Support?

When our Service Cloud clients ask us what we think of “Big Data” – we usually say that it really boils down to “smart(er) use of data”.

What does that mean for Customer Service organizations? Setting aside the technical challenges – let’s look at some of the potential benefits of Big Data Technology for your business.

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Big Data Enables Predictive Analytics

Have you ever wanted to get inside the mind of a customer and know exactly how they were using your product or how likely they were to stay a customer?

If companies can tap into big data and analyze it effectively – there’s no need for them to wonder. Practically speaking this could mean all kinds of improvements to the customer support experience, like:

• More relevant self-help resources (feeding off of previous customer ratings)
• Less customer satisfaction surveys
• Identifying customer churn before it happens
• More accurate and meaningful performance measurement of your agents

As more companies figure out how to make use of their data, this will no longer be a differentiator, but a requirement to stay competitive in the market.

What can you do to get started?

1. Look forward to built in SFDC functionality

• Salesforce’s acquisition of Prior Knowledge is exciting news
• It means that eventually a Service Cloud customer may be able to use predictive analytics out of the box
• The possibilities are almost limitless – better knowledge base results, more targeted product/service offerings, and a whole host of other applications

2. Capture & consolidate

• To make the magic of predictive analytics work – you need data
• If you’re not already capturing data – think about how you can tap into different sources of customer info
• Next, consolidate this data or make it accessible to a system that can actually do the analysis

3. Pay for talent

• Don’t forget the final challenge: the actual analysis
• Service Cloud will likely have great out of box product features, but you may want to slice and dice your data in a different way
• McKinsey & Co. have predicted a major shortage of qualified data analysts by 2018 so be prepared to invest in talent

As Big Data technology matures – there will be many more options for Customer Service  to make smarter use of data, but there’s no reason to not start with what you have today.