Anticipatory customer service: anticipatory service concept of being proactive, not simply waiting passively until customers request service. To do this, companies must anticipate potential problem areas before they become troublesome, develop situations, and provide service that exceeds customer expectations.
Three things in order to implement anticipatory customer service:
1. build customer scenarios, using data including call center reports, e-mail logs, chat transcripts, and Web site software that can report unusual volumes of activity and uncover patterns in a day-to day service queries. Use the scenarios to determine where intervention can prevent problems, such as common customer mistakes in placing orders.
2. make customer service pervasive by fulfilling common requests before the customer even asks and enduring that service is readily available throughout the value chain
3. design the service process for “seamless escalation”. Translated, this means firms must guide customers to the service they need without having to move through frustrating layers of information that does not fir the needs of the customer.