How to Increase Revenue With Support Services

In a customer-centric world, creating an excellent customer experience is key to making your brand stand out from the rest. Statistics show that improving the customer experience is actually cost effective; “A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10%” (15 Statistics That Should Change the Business World- But Haven’t). One noHold customer discovered how an existing Virtual Assistant could help generate revenue by promoting new products/services in the right context. Here’s the story…

• The brand in reference is in the consumer electronics industry.
• The company implemented a Virtual Assistant that primarily answers post-sales questions about products.
• On average, the Virtual Assistant handles 75,000 interactions per month, while significantly decreasing support costs.
• The company began promoting a new service on the web site, a Premium Support Service.
• They used typical marketing strategies: banners, colorful buttons, etc. Very little leads came from this type of advertising, though. 
• noHold proposed to let the Virtual Assistant offer the Premium Service in the right context. For example, when an end user describes a problem, the Virtual Assistant provides an answer, but if appropriate, it also suggests to sign up for the Premium Service. No flashy buttons or gimmicks, just let the Virtual Assistant play the role of an expert advisor. 
• It worked! Of the 75,000 interactions per month, 10,000 resulted in leads, and 1,200 converted into sales. After doing the calculations (each sale being about $110), this company was generating an average of $132,000 per month via the new revenue stream.

From this, we learned a couple invaluable lessons. First being, the Virtual Assistant is a great resource to generate leads that might have been lost otherwise. The same service that was not getting attention while flashing in the middle of the Website, is now reaching record sales due to the Virtual Assistant’s ability to understand the context of the conversation and present an offer only when it makes sense. 

Secondly, the Virtual Assistant is able to provide a better customer experience than most other solutions. Take this as an example; a customer is lamenting that the battery life on his or her laptop is degrading. The Virtual Assistant can provide both simple suggestions to increase battery life, and present a one-click link to buy a new battery. In the end, the customer receives excellent customer service and the company effectively cross-sells in the appropriate context. 

“In today’s society, humans are programmed to reject typical forms of advertisements, but everyone still appreciates a helping hand when they are trying to solve a problem.” –Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold.