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Month: November 2025

Your Guide to Live Chat: Benefits & Best Practices

Posted on Michael Hartsog

Key Takeaways

  • Visibility matters:  If users can’t see or know about your live chat, they won’t use it. Promote the chat option via your website, email campaigns, phone hold messages, and other touchpoints.
  • Remove friction in access: Make initiating chat as painless as possible. Minimize form fields, allow conversational data collection before routing to agents, and reduce extra steps that discourage use.
  • Personalize interactions: Use branding, agent names/pictures, or context from prior interactions to tailor the chat experience. The more it feels human and relevant, the more comfortable customers will be using it.
  • Leverage AI & automation smartly: Use AI to automate answers to routine queries, freeing human agents for more complex tasks. At the same time, ensure smooth escalation from AI to humans and maintain continuity

When customer experience directors float the idea of investing more heavily in live chat for customer service, it’s not uncommon for them to get pushback. One of the biggest motivations for such reticence is uncertainty over whether anyone will actually want to use such support channels—and whether investing in them will ultimately prove worth it.

An additional headwind comes from the fact that many CX directors are laboring under the misapprehension that they need an elaborate plan to push customers into a new channel. However, one thing we consistently hear from our enterprise customers is that it’s surprising how customers naturally start using a new channel when they realize it exists. To borrow a famous phrase from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” Or, to paraphrase a bit, “If you build it (and make it easy for them to engage with you), they will come.” You don’t have to create a process that diverts them to the new channel.

What is Live Chat?

Live chat is a real-time messaging tool on a website or app that lets customers quickly communicate with a business. It typically appears as a small chat window and allows users to ask questions, get support, or receive guidance instantly while browsing. Live chat improves customer experience by reducing wait times and offering immediate, personalized help.

Why is Live Chat Important for Contact Centers?

Live chat has a clear impact on customer engagement. When businesses offer real-time messaging, customers are more likely to return, explore confidently, and move toward a purchase because they can get quick answers without waiting on hold.

It’s also a channel customers genuinely prefer. Live chat feels easier and more convenient than phone or email, lets users multitask, and gives them a written record of the conversation—all of which contribute to consistently strong satisfaction. Support teams benefit, too. Handling conversations through chat reduces the emotional strain of frequent phone calls and allows agents to manage more interactions efficiently, which can improve morale and retention.

Overall, live chat stands out as an effective communication channel that supports better customer satisfaction and stronger outcomes for support teams—making it a smart choice for contact centers and customer service today and in the future.

Benefits of Live Chat Support Services

Real-Time Support

When customers need help, they don’t want to wait. Live chat support services provide instant solutions, cutting down resolution times and getting customers the answers they need—fast. And when customers get quick answers, they stick around. Faster replies lead to higher satisfaction, increased trust, and more repeat business. The quicker the response, the better the experience,— and that’s a win for both customers and businesses.

Increased Customer Satisfaction

Today’s customers expect immediate support, and live chat support services deliver exactly that. When customers know they can rely on your support team for quick, clear, and helpful answers, they feel confident in your brand. That confidence translates into loyalty, repeat purchases, and positive word-of-mouth—turning a one-time buyer into a long-term customer.

Efficiency

Live chat isn’t just better for customers,— it’s a game-changer for support teams too. Unlike phone calls, where agents can only help one person at a time, live chat lets them handle multiple conversations at once. That means fewer bottlenecks, faster resolutions, and better overall efficiency. Plus, fewer phone calls = lower costs. With live chat, businesses can reduce phone expenses, optimize staffing, and minimize hold times—all without sacrificing customer experience.

Omnichannel Integration

Customers don’t just stick to one channel—they bounce between email, social media, SMS, and your website. Live chat support services integrate seamlessly into this mix, creating a unified experience. Whether a customer starts a conversation on social media and follows up via chat or asks a question through SMS, they get the same consistent service. Even better, integrating chat across channels keeps all customer interactions in one place, so your team has a complete history of past conversations. That means no more repeating issues, fewer dropped interactions, and a smoother customer journey from start to finish.

Live Chat Support Best Practices

Prompt Response Times

Speed matters when it comes to live chat support services. The faster you respond, the more valued customers feel—and that leads to higher satisfaction and loyalty. Nobody likes waiting, especially when they have a quick question standing between them and a purchase. Whether a customer is asking about shipping costs, return policies, or product details, meeting them in the moment with real-time support keeps them engaged.

Professional Communication

Live chat is fast, but that doesn’t mean it should feel rushed. A professional and friendly tone makes all the difference in building trust and keeping conversations productive. Customers want clear, concise, and helpful responses—not robotic scripts or vague answers. Miscommunication can create frustration, so keep things simple, polite, and to the point. Use proper grammar, avoid jargon, and personalize interactions with the customer’s name. A great chat experience feels like talking to a knowledgeable friend—someone who understands the problem and knows exactly how to help. The smoother the conversation, the more confident customers feel about your brand.

24/7 Availability

Customers shop on their own time, whether that’s during a lunch break, late at night, or halfway across the world. Offering live chat support services 24/7 means you’re always there when they need help. This is especially valuable for global businesses, ensuring customers in different time zones get real-time answers instead of waiting for office hours. Plus, round-the-clock availability isn’t just about support—it’s a sales booster too. A shopper with a question at 2 AM might just leave if they can’t get an answer. But if live chat is available? That hesitation disappears, and the sale happens.

6 Tips for Encouraging Customers to Use Live Chat

1. Make Sure People Know You have Live Chat Services

One of the simplest ways to increase live chat adoption is to make it highly visible. Promote it across your usual channels—your support page, social media, order confirmation emails, and other customer touchpoints so people know it’s available.

You can also shift customers from phone to messaging by mentioning live chat in your IVR or hold messages. Since customers dislike waiting on hold, offering a quick alternative like web chat, SMS, WhatsApp, or Apple Messages can encourage them to switch. A prompt as straightforward as “Press 2 to chat with an agent online or by text” can significantly reduce call volume.

Highlighting live chat benefits everyone. Agents can manage multiple conversations at once, leading to quicker resolutions and higher overall satisfaction. And the more places you link to live chat on post-purchase emails, product pages, hero pages, and other high-intent parts of your website, the easier it is for customers to get help in the moment, which can also boost conversions.

2. Minimize the Hassle of Using Live Chat

One of the better ways of boosting engagement with any feature, including live chat, is to make it as pain-free as possible.

Take contact forms, for example, which can speed up time to resolution by organizing all the basic information a service agent needs. This is great when a customer has a complex issue, but if they only have a quick question, filling out even a simple contact form may be onerous enough to prevent them from asking it. Every additional second of searching or fiddling means another lost opportunity.

 There’s a bit of a balancing act here, but, in general, the fewer fields a contact form has, the more likely someone is to fill it out.

The emergence of large language models (LLMs) has made it possible to use an AI agent to collect information about customers’ specific orders or requests. When such an agent detects that a request is complex and needs human attention, it can ask for the necessary information to pass along to an agent. This turns the traditional contact form into a conversation, placing it further along in the customer service journey, so only those customers who need to fill it out will have to use it.

3. Personalize Your Chat

Another way to make live chat for customer service more attractive is to personalize your interactions. Personalization can be anything from including an agent’s name and picture in the chat interface displayed on your webpage to leveraging an LLM to craft a whole bespoke context for each conversation.

For our purposes, the two big categories of personalization are brand-specific personalization and customer-specific personalization. Let’s discuss each.

Brand-specific personalization

Marketing and contact teams should collaborate to craft notifications, greetings, etc., to fit their brand’s personality. Chat icons often feature an introductory message such as “How can I help you?” to let browsers know their questions are welcome. This is a place for you to set the tone for the rest of the conversation, and such friendly wording can encourage people to take the next step and type out a message.

More broadly, these departments should also develop a general tone of voice for their service agents. While there may be some scripted language in customer service interactions, most customers expect human support specialists to act like humans. And, since every request or concern is a little different, agents often need to change what they say or how they say it.

Customer-specific personalization

Customer-specific personalization, which might involve something as simple as using their name, or extend to drawing from their purchase history to include the specifics of the order they’re asking about.

Among the many things that today’s LLMs excel at is personalization. Machine learning has long been used to personalize recommendations, but when LLMs are turbo-charged with a technique like retrieval-augmented generation (which allows them to use validated data sources to inform their replies to questions), the results can be astonishing.

Machine-based personalization and retrieval-augmented generation are both big subjects, and you can read through the links for more context. But the high-level takeaway is that, together, they facilitate the creation of a seamless and highly personalized experience across your communication channels using the latest advances in AI. Customers will feel more comfortable using your live chat feature, and will grow to feel a connection with your brand over time.

4. Include Privacy and Data Usage Messages

By taking privacy seriously, you can distinguish yourself and thereby build trust. Customers visiting your website want an assurance that you will take every precaution with their private information, and this can be provided through easy-to-understand data privacy policies and customizable cookie preferences.

Live messaging tools can cause concerns because they are often powered by third-party software. Customer service messaging can also require a lot of personal information, making some users hesitant to use these tools.

You can quell these concerns by elucidating how you handle private customer data. When a message like this appears at the start of a new chat, it is always accessible via the header, or persists in your chat menu, customers can see how their data is safeguarded and feel secure while entering personal details.

5. Use Rich Messages

Smartphones have become a central hub for browsing the internet, shopping, socializing, and managing daily activities. As text messaging gradually supplemented most of our other ways of communicating, it became obvious that an upgrade was needed.

This led to the development of rich messaging applications and protocols such as Apple Messages for Business and WhatsApp, which use Rich Communication Services (RCS). RCS features enhancements like buttons, quick replies, and carousel cards—all designed to make interactions easier and faster for the customer.

Using rich messaging in live chat with customers will likely help boost engagement. Customers are accustomed to seeing emojis now, and you can include them as a way of humanizing and personalizing your interactions. There might be contexts in which they need to see or even send graphics or images, which is very difficult with the old Short Messaging Service (SMS).

6. Separating Chat and Agent Availability

Once upon a time, ‘chat availability’ simply meant the same thing as ‘agent availability,’ but today’s language models are rapidly becoming capable enough to resolve a wide variety of issues on their own. In fact, one of the major selling points of AI agents is that they provide round-the-clock service because they don’t need to eat, sleep, or take bathroom breaks.

This doesn’t mean that they can be left totally alone, of course. Humans still need to monitor their interactions to make sure they’re not being rude or hallucinating false information. But this is also something that becomes much easier when you pair with an industry-leading conversational AI for CX platform that has robust safeguards, monitoring tools, and the ability to switch between different underlying models (in case one starts to act up).

Having said that, there are still a wide variety of tasks for which a living agent is still the best choice. For this reason, many companies have specific time windows when live chat for customer service is available. When it’s not, some choose to let customers know when live chat is an option by communicating the next availability window.

Employing these two strategies means that your ability to service customers is decoupled from operational constraints of agent availability, and you are always ready to seize the opportunity to serve customers when they are eager to engage with your brand

Creating Greater CX Outcomes with Live Web Chat is Just the Start.

Live web chat remains one of the strongest ways to resolve issues quickly while building trust and elevating the customer experience. The key to driving higher engagement is making chat visible, easy to use, and personalized while using AI to handle routine questions and fill in gaps when agents aren’t available.

With Quiq, these strategies become even more effective. Quiq helps teams blend AI, automation, and human agents across chat, messaging, and web channels so customers always get fast, reliable support.

If you’re interested in taking additional steps and learning how to use live chat more effectively within your customer-service strategy, be sure to explore our Agentic AI for CX Buyers Kit. It breaks down practical, actionable ways to elevate your support experience—covering automation, AI-driven workflows, and the evolving role of messaging. Inside, you’ll find clear guidance on how to use live chat alongside modern AI capabilities to boost satisfaction, streamline operations, and drive more meaningful customer outcomes.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why should businesses offer live chat support?

Live chat provides instant, convenient communication – reducing wait times and improving customer satisfaction while lowering operational costs.

How can I encourage customers to use live chat?

Make the chat widget visible, promote it across touchpoints (like emails or social), and ensure it’s easy to access without long forms or redirects.

How does live chat benefit support teams?

AI agents can handle multiple chats simultaneously, improving efficiency, reducing call volume, and boosting job satisfaction.

Can live chat integrate with other channels?

Absolutely. Live chat can be part of an omnichannel strategy that connects web, SMS, and social interactions for a seamless customer experience.

What metrics should I track to measure chat success?

Monitor chat volume, first-response time, resolution time, CSAT scores, and conversion rates to understand performance and customer satisfaction.

Call Center Cost Reduction: 12 Proven Strategies

Posted on Michael Hartsog

Key Takeaways

  • AI is the key to smarter cost reduction. Technology like agentic AI and tools like AI agents and assistants automate routine tasks, boost efficiency, and actually improve service quality.
  • You can cut costs and keep customers happy. Introducing robust analytics, asynchronous channels, and personalized AI reduces costs while improving CX.
  • A phased roadmap drives lasting results. Start with assessment and planning, implement quick wins, then optimize and scale with ongoing performance tracking.
  • Human agent engagement is essential. Clear communication, strong training, and incentives help teams embrace new tools and work more efficiently.
  • Agentic AI delivers the biggest impact. Agentic AI automates complex workflows, reduces operational costs, and empowers human agents to do higher-value work.

Call centers represent a significant portion of overall customer service spending for many organizations. While they were once viewed as cost centers, they are now evolving into strategic drivers of customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and revenue. Even with this shift, organizations still face mounting pressure to manage and reduce operational costs without compromising the quality of the customer experience.

The challenge is finding sustainable, employee- and customer-friendly ways to improve efficiency and lower operational costs. It’s a delicate balance, but with the right strategies, it’s entirely achievable.

This guide will walk you through 12 proven strategies to reduce call center operational costs. You’ll learn how to implement these changes while maintaining high service quality and keeping your agents satisfied and engaged.

Top 12 Call Center Cost Reduction Strategies

Reducing costs doesn’t have to mean cutting corners. By focusing on smart investments in technology and process optimization, you can achieve significant savings while simultaneously improving your customer and agent experience. Here are 12 strategies to get you started.

Infographic showing 12 call center cost reduction strategies for enterprise brands

1. Implement Human Agent-Facing AI Assistants

To achieve meaningful call center cost reduction, organizations must move toward AI assistants that can plan, reason, and act autonomously within your CX ecosystem. Agentic AI represents a leap forward, enabling AI assistants to assist human agents in real time by suggesting responses and taking action on common requests, like submitting orders and processing follow-ups.

  • Cost Benefit: Quiq’s AI Assistants for human agents dramatically improve efficiency by suggesting next-best actions, on-brand responses, and even taking action on behalf of agents.
  • Case study highlight: Panasonic EU worked with Quiq to implement agent-facing AI that provides real-time response suggestions. Learn more >

2. Implement agentic AI agents for Customers

Routine inquiries like order status updates, password resets, or basic product questions can consume a significant amount of your human agents’ time. Implementing AI agents to handle these common, Tier 1, low-complexity tasks is a powerful cost-reduction strategy.

  • Cost benefit: This approach reduces handle time for your human agents and can lower headcount requirements, especially during peak volume periods. Quiq’s agentic AI can seamlessly integrate with your existing systems and maintain a consistent brand voice while driving down per-interaction costs. This frees up your team to focus on interactions that require a human touch, driving down operational costs.
  • Case study highlight: Brinks Home™ lowered cost per contact by 67% using this strategy. Learn more >

3. Implement Voice AI for Workforce Optimization

Voice AI can manage a wide range of routine customer interactions, such as appointment scheduling, order updates, or account inquiries. This allows your live agents to dedicate their time and expertise to more complex or higher-value calls that genuinely require human empathy and problem-solving skills.

  • Cost benefit: Leveraging Voice AI reduces average handle time, minimizes the need for overstaffing during peak hours, and can even lower training costs by providing real-time guidance to agents. Quiq’s Voice AI analyzes tone, intent, and emotion in real time, enabling smarter routing, live coaching, and more efficient staffing—helping call centers cut costs without sacrificing quality.
  • Case study highlight: Spirit Airlines implemented an omnichannel strategy in its contact center, including Voice AI, leading to an automated resolution rate of over 40%, with conversation times that are 16% faster. Learn more >

4. Utilize Cloud-Based Call Center Software

On-premise hardware is expensive to purchase, maintain, and upgrade. Cloud-based call center software eliminates this capital expenditure and provides the flexibility to scale your operations up or down as needed, without being tied to physical infrastructure. Not to mention, using cloud technology means that all your agents need is a laptop and Internet access, and they can work from anywhere. No more massive call centers—and the massive cost that goes with them.

  • Cost benefit: Migrating to the cloud significantly reduces IT maintenance costs and often improves uptime and reliability. A cloud-native architecture like Quiq’s Digital Engagement Center allows for rapid deployment, effortless updates, and seamless integration with CRMs and other business systems—no hardware required.

5. Integrate Omnichannel Communication Platforms

Modern customers expect to move fluidly between voice, web chat, SMS, and a number of asynchronous messaging channels without having to repeat themselves. Supporting these journeys with a collection of disconnected tools is inefficient and creates a frustrating experience for both customers and agents.

  • Cost benefit: Consolidating your channels onto a single, unified platform reduces tool redundancy and lowers software licensing costs. With an AI-ready omnichannel platform, agents can manage all interactions from one unified view, driving efficiency and leading to better customer outcomes.
  • Case study highlight: Brinks Home shifted digital transactions from 12% to 60% in under three years. Learn more >

6. Optimize Agent Scheduling and Workforce Planning

Idle time is a major-yet-hidden cost driver in any call center. Inefficient scheduling can lead to agents waiting for calls during lulls and being overwhelmed during peaks. Using data-driven workforce management (WFM) tools helps you forecast demand and align staffing levels accordingly.

  • Cost benefit: Optimized scheduling minimizes agent downtime and reduces the need for costly overtime, all while ensuring you have optimal coverage to meet service levels. You can integrate scheduling tools with your contact center platform to track real-time agent utilization and other productivity metrics.

7. Focus On First Call Resolution

First Call Resolution (FCR) is a critical metric. When customers have to call back multiple times to resolve a single issue, it drives up call volume and tanks customer satisfaction. Focusing on resolving issues in a single interaction is a powerful lever for call center cost reduction.

  • Cost benefit: Improving FCR means fewer repeat contacts, escalations, and follow-ups, which translates directly to measurable cost savings. AI-provided responses and recommendations from an AI assistant built by Quiq can surface the right information or suggest the next best action during a conversation, empowering agents to solve problems faster and boosting FCR rates.
  • Case study highlight: A large, Southern-themed American chain of restaurant and gift stores worked with Quiq to deploy AI that reduced customer follow-up times by over 90% and resolved most issues in the first interaction. 

8. Streamline Call Routing and IVR Systems

“Please listen carefully as our menu options have recently changed.” This familiar phrase often signals a frustrating customer journey ahead. Outdated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) trees and inefficient routing strategies increase call times and annoy customers, forcing many to “zero out” to reach a human.

  • Cost benefit: Intelligent routing ensures customers are connected to the right agent or self-service option faster, which reduces average handle time (AHT). Quiq’s AI-enhanced routing can identify customer intent early in the interaction and direct the inquiry to the optimal channel—be it a human or an AI agent.
  • Case study highlight: A financial services company uses Quiq’s intelligent tagging and routing capabilities to match inquiries to specialized agents, reducing resolution times and ensuring a more personalized experience. Improving workflows in this way, along with providing a unified console experience, has led to 95% agent QA scores, as they’ve become more confident and efficient in delivering quality support.

9. Develop Self-Service Customer Portals

Empowering customers to find answers and solve issues on their own is one of the most effective ways to reduce call volume. Robust self-service options, such as comprehensive FAQ hubs, knowledge bases, and AI-powered chat, can deflect a large number of repetitive inquiries.

  • Cost Benefit: Every inquiry resolved through self-service is one less call your agents have to handle, directly reducing your cost per contact. Pairing self-service portals with agentic AI like Quiq’s allows for intelligent escalation only when human intervention truly adds value.
  • Case study highlight: Chamberlain Group worked with Quiq to create an agentic AI Agent named Amber who can do everything from answer common questions to help customers troubleshoot complex account and product-specific issues. And customers prefer the experience!  

10. Reduce Agent Turnover Through Better Training and Opening Digital Messaging

High agent turnover is one of the biggest hidden costs in the call center industry, with some estimates putting the annual rate around 40%. The expenses associated with recruiting, hiring, and training new agents add up quickly. Investing in comprehensive onboarding and ongoing training improves agent performance, satisfaction, and retention. 

Not only that, but opening up digital messaging channels means that when agents chat with customers, they can do so at a clip of 3-5 conversations at a time vs. just one. And agents prefer it to answering the phone.

  • Cost benefit: Lowering turnover reduces recruitment and training expenses. Better-trained agents are also more efficient and provide higher-quality service. You can equip agents with AI-powered coaching and conversation insights to accelerate their skill development and boost their confidence. Plus, moving interactions to digital channels is a cost reduction strategy. Not to mention, agents are less likely to burn out managing chat vs. angry customers calling in.
  • Case study highlight: A global hospitality brand introduced digital messaging to their agent team via Quiq, leading to zero agent turnover and 40% improvement in response times. Learn more > 

11. Implement Performance-Based Incentives

Motivating agents to align with key business goals can drive significant efficiency gains. Implementing incentive programs tied to measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like First Call Resolution, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), and Average Handle Time encourages agents to work more effectively.

  • Cost benefit: Performance-based rewards can increase agent productivity without increasing headcount. Using analytics dashboards to transparently track performance metrics and celebrate top performers fosters a culture of achievement and continuous improvement.
  • Pro tip! Save time and money by using unbiased AI Analysts to review every conversation to determine if KPIs are being met. 

12. Consider Specialized vs. Cross-Trained Agents

Some organizations perform best with fewer, specially-skilled agents, while others do better with more agents who are cross-trained. It depends on your business and product type. For many companies, specialization can lead to bottlenecks. Cross-training agents to handle multiple types of interactions (e.g., sales, support, billing) across different channels creates a more agile and flexible workforce. Either way, two things remain true:

  1. If your support agents are idle while the sales queue is backed up, you’re not using your resources efficiently. 
  2. Gathering data at the outset of a conversation is always most efficient.

Cost benefit: A multi-skilled team reduces idle time and improves coverage flexibility, allowing you to deploy agents where demand is highest. Quiq’s omnichannel system supports seamless transitions between tasks, making it easy for agents to switch roles as needed. If you go with fewer, more specialized agents, ensure you have a comprehensive AI automation and routing system in place, so your agents only need to take on high-complexity tasks.

How to Measure and Track Cost Reduction Success

To ensure your call center cost reduction initiatives are effective, you must track the right KPIs. These metrics will help you quantify your savings, measure the impact on customer experience, and identify areas for further optimization.

Cost Per Call 

  • Definition: This metric calculates the total expense of operating your call center divided by the total number of calls handled. It gives you a clear picture of the expense associated with each customer interaction.
  • Benefit: Tracking cost per call helps you directly measure the financial impact of your efficiency initiatives. A lower number indicates your strategies are working.
  • Calculation: Total Call Center Operating Costs / Total Number of Calls Handled

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

  • Definition: CSAT measures how happy customers are with a specific interaction or experience. It’s typically measured with a survey asking customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale.
  • Benefit: This metric ensures your cost-cutting efforts aren’t negatively impacting the customer experience. A stable or increasing CSAT score alongside reduced costs is the ideal outcome.
  • Calculation: (Number of “Satisfied” + “Very Satisfied” Responses / Total Number of Responses) × 100

Average Handle Time (AHT)

  • Definition: AHT measures the average duration of a single customer interaction, from the moment an agent starts until all after-call work is complete.
  • Benefit: Reducing handle time is a direct way to improve agent efficiency and lower cost per call. However, it should be monitored alongside CSAT to ensure quality isn’t being sacrificed for speed.
  • Calculation: (Total Talk Time + Total Hold Time + Total After-Call Work) / Total Number of Interactions

Agent Utilization Rate

  • Definition: This metric measures the percentage of time agents are actively engaged in call-related activities versus their total paid time.
  • Benefit: A higher utilization rate indicates that your workforce is being used efficiently, with minimal idle time. It’s a key indicator for assessing the effectiveness of your scheduling and WFM strategies.
  • Calculation: (Total Time Spent on Call-Related Activities / Total Paid Agent Hours) x 100

Customer Satisfaction vs. Cost Balance

  • Definition: This isn’t a single formula but rather a strategic analysis of the relationship between your cost metrics (like cost per call) and your satisfaction metrics (like CSAT or NPS).
  • Benefit: It provides a holistic view, helping you ensure that you’re achieving a sustainable balance. The goal is to find the sweet spot where costs are optimized and customer satisfaction remains high. This balance is crucial for long-term success.

Learn how agentic AI is changing CX metrics. Get the guide >

Implementation Roadmap for Call Center Cost Reduction

A successful cost reduction program requires a structured approach. A phased roadmap helps ensure you build a strong foundation, secure early wins, and create lasting change.

Phase 1: Assessment and Planning (Month 1-2)

Before diving into technology upgrades or process changes, organizations should start by building a strong foundation rooted in data and strategic clarity.

Current State Analysis and Cost Audit

Begin by auditing your current operational expenses, analyzing call volumes, and measuring agent productivity. Dig deep to identify redundant tools, inefficient manual workflows, and the highest-cost areas of your operation. This data will be the baseline against which you measure success.

Goal Setting and Budget Allocation

With a clear understanding of your current state, set specific, measurable, and achievable goals. These might include targets like “reduce cost per contact by 15% in 6 months” or “improve FCR by 10%.” Prioritize initiatives with the strongest potential ROI, paying special attention to how advanced technologies like Agentic AI can accelerate your progress.

Phase 2: Quick Wins Implementation (Month 3-4)

Once you have a plan, focus on changes that can deliver a high impact with relatively low cost and effort.

Low-Cost, High-Impact Changes

Look for immediate opportunities. This could involve consolidating communication tools into a unified omnichannel platform to reduce licensing fees or automating simple, repetitive tasks like ticket routing and post-interaction follow-ups.

Process Optimization Initiatives

Standardize and improve your knowledge bases to make it easier for agents to find information. Streamline agent workflows to remove unnecessary steps. Optimize agent schedules to better match staffing levels with forecasted call volumes, reducing both idle time and overtime. This is also the perfect stage to introduce pilot programs for agentic AI to demonstrate its value.

Phase 3: Optimization and Scaling (Month 5-6)

With a foundation in place and quick wins achieved, the final phase is about refining your approach, measuring results, and scaling what works.

Performance Monitoring and Adjustments

Continuously track your key performance indicators, including AHT, CSAT, FCR, and cost per contact. Use this data to see what’s working and what isn’t. Be prepared to fine-tune your strategies based on these insights. As you prove the value of your initiatives, you can scale AI and automation across more processes and departments.

Common Challenges and Solutions

Implementing change is never without its obstacles. Here’s how to navigate two of the most common challenges in a call center transformation.

1. Overcoming Resistance to Change

Agents and managers may be resistant to new technologies and processes, especially if they fear job replacement or disruption to their established routines.

Change Management Best Practices

Effective change management starts with a clear vision. Communicate the “why” behind the changes and the expected benefits for the company, employees, and customers. Involve frontline agents early in pilot programs to gather their feedback and foster a sense of ownership.

Agent Buy-In and Training Strategies

Offer hands-on training, workshops, and quick-reference guides to ease the learning curve for new tools. Crucially, frame new technologies like AI as tools that enhance—not replace—human expertise. Highlight how they can eliminate mundane tasks and free up agents to focus on more engaging, higher-value work.

Get more tips for managing the human element of change. Download guide >

2. Maintaining Service Quality During Cost Reduction

An aggressive focus on cost-cutting can inadvertently lead to a decline in service quality, which can damage customer loyalty and your brand’s reputation.

Customer Satisfaction Monitoring

Keep a close eye on your customer-facing metrics throughout the process. Track CSAT, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and resolution rates to catch any negative trends early. Use customer feedback surveys and sentiment analysis to understand the “why” behind the numbers and fine-tune your workflows and automation triggers accordingly.

Agentic AI: The Ultimate Tool for Cost Savings

While all 12 strategies can contribute to a more efficient call center, the single most impactful change you can make is the implementation of agentic AI. This technology doesn’t just automate simple tasks; it handles complex, multi-step workflows, intelligently escalates when needed, and empowers human agents to perform at their best.

By taking on the repetitive and routine work, agentic AI frees up your team to focus on building customer relationships and solving the most challenging issues. Quiq’s agentic AI is the #1 recommendation for any organization serious about call center cost reduction because it delivers substantial savings while simultaneously enhancing both the customer and agent experience.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the average cost savings potential from these strategies?

The savings potential varies widely depending on your call center’s size, current efficiency, and the specific strategies you implement. However, organizations often see cost reductions of 15-30% or more by combining technology adoption, process optimization, and workforce management improvements.

How long does it take to see results from call center cost reduction efforts?

You can see results from “quick win” initiatives like process optimization or scheduling adjustments within a few months. More significant technology implementations, like deploying agentic AI, may take 3-6 months to show their full financial impact, though improvements in efficiency metrics are often visible much sooner.

What are the risks of aggressive cost-cutting in a call center?

The biggest risk is a decline in service quality, which can lead to customer frustration, churn, and damage to your brand’s reputation. It can also lead to agent burnout and high turnover if employees feel overworked and under-supported. This is why it’s crucial to balance cost reduction with a focus on CX and agent satisfaction metrics.

How do you maintain quality while reducing costs?

The key is to focus on efficiency, not just cuts. Invest in technology like AI that handles repetitive tasks flawlessly, freeing up humans for high-value interactions. Continuously monitor CSAT and FCR to ensure quality remains high. Empower agents with better tools and training so they can work smarter, not just harder.

What’s the highest-value strategy for call center cost reduction?

Implementing agentic AI is typically the highest-value strategy. It offers the greatest potential for automating complex workflows, significantly reducing operational costs, and freeing up human agents to focus on strategic, revenue-generating, and complex customer issues. Its impact is systemic, improving everything from handle time to agent satisfaction.

How often should cost reduction strategies be reviewed?

Cost reduction is not a one-time project; it’s an ongoing process of optimization. You should review your strategies and KPIs on a quarterly basis to adapt to changing business needs, customer expectations, and new technological capabilities.

Asynchronous Messaging: How to Use it to Deliver Exceptional Customer Service

Posted on Michael Hartsog

Key Takeaways

  • Asynchronous messaging lets people send and respond to messages on their own schedule without needing to be online at the same time.
  • Asynchronous messaging helps teams minimize context switching and stay focused by eliminating the pressure to respond immediately.
  • Async communication works especially well across time zones, ensuring progress continues even when schedules don’t overlap.
  • It’s ideal for feedback, updates, documentation, and questions that don’t require a real-time discussion.
  • Asynchronous messaging works best with clear communication. Setting response-time norms ensures async messaging stays efficient and avoids unnecessary delays.

Messaging is good. Asynchronous messaging is better.

Let’s face it. Customers have little tolerance for inconveniences of any kind. Whether that’s waiting around for a response, repeating information, or finding an immediate solution to their problem.

Customer service teams aim to serve, so having the available channels to give customers the exact experience they want is crucial to increasing customer satisfaction.

What is asynchronous messaging?

Asynchronous Messaging is a communication method where two parties don’t need to be present or active at the same time for the conversation to continue. Messages are sent and received on each person’s own schedule, allowing for flexible, delayed responses like email, SMS, or chat systems, where replies can come minutes or hours later.

What does asynchronous messaging actually look like? Imagine you’re the customer. You’re busy but need help returning a pair of boots (that just aren’t your style) that your well-meaning dad bought you for your birthday. A completely random example…

You reach out to the live chat service on the eCommerce website to initiate the return, but you’re interrupted midway through the conversation. There’s an immediate work problem that needs your attention. The kids are fighting. The sky is falling. Whatever it may be, you have to start the process all over again.

Frustrating, right? It’s just a simple return!

Well, asynchronous messaging (sometimes called async messaging or asynchronous chat) takes the stress out of that conversation. It doesn’t require both parties to be present at the same time to complete the interaction. You can simply jump back in once you’ve taken care of life’s responsibilities. This is asynchronous messaging at its best.

SMS/text messages, WhatsApp, and Facebook Chat are all prime examples of asynchronous messaging in action. Conversations can start, stop, and resume whenever either person is available.

Synchronous vs Asynchronous Conversations

At the other end of the spectrum is synchronous messaging. It’s typically a live, one-to-one chat between a customer and a customer service representative.

What makes it so different? There’s usually a clear beginning and end to a synchronous chat. A customer reaches out with a specific question or to find a solution to their problem, and the conversation ends once those needs are met.

Think of it like a typical phone interaction—just using messaging instead of voice. And since synchronous messaging is so similar to phone interactions, it often comes with the same drawbacks.

  • Customers have to wait for a live agent.
  • If the agent can’t answer a question, the customer has to be rerouted.
  • Agents can only serve one person at a time.
  • Complex problems take up more of your agents’ time.
  • If a customer gets interrupted, the chat ends without a resolution.

Think of asynchronous messaging somewhere between live chat and email. Customers typically expect a quick,—but not instant, —response. This flexibility allows your team to deliver exceptional customer service atin a time that works for the customer and your team.

But that’s not the only benefit. Here are seven benefits of adding asynchronous messaging to your customer service arsenal.

  1. Customers can fit you into their busy days. Life is busy. We’re always multitasking. There are too many distractions—it’s a lot. Asynchronous messaging gives customers the flexibility to fit you into their schedules. They don’t have to block time out of their day for a lengthy live chat or wait for business hours to get someone on the phone. Instead, they can get their support requests taken care of on their own time, at their own pace.
  2. Less wait time. Since agents can jump in and out of multiple conversations—as many as 30 at a time—customers spend less time “on hold” waiting to connect with a live agent. And that is really important to customers. Zendesk reports that over 60% say getting their issues resolved quickly is the most important aspect of good customer service. With asynchronous messaging, customers can get answers while going about their day.
  3. No repeated information. One of the things that frustrates customers the most is having to repeat their problem. No matter whether they get disconnected from a live chat or transferred to multiple people before they get an answer to their problem, repeating themselves almost always leads to a bad experience. With asynchronous messaging and a conversational platform behind it, customers (and agents) can pick up the conversation right where they left off. There’s no information lost between sessions. Their conversation history is available for agents to reference at any time.
  4. Resolve problems in less time. While asynchronous messaging potentially drags out conversations (depending on how quickly your customers respond), agents often spend less working time per interaction. Quiq clients can reduce work time by 25–40% when converting calls to messaging. This is because agents can quickly address those frequently asked questions that don’t necessarily require a phone call (think password reset process and hours of operation). Simple problems get solved faster, while more complex problems have the breathing room to come to a thorough resolution.
  5. Prioritize customer requests. During peak times, when your team is truly overwhelmed, asynchronous messaging helps your agents triage customer requests. Collect customer information, sentiment, and problem upfront to determine how quickly the problem needs to be addressed. A customer service agent can immediately help an angry customer with a simple problem and close out the ticket quickly. A neutral person with a more complex question can wait a little longer for your agents to figure out the right response.
  6. Asynchronous messaging agent efficiency customer engagement performance channels sms facebook instagram whatsapp conversationsMeet support demands with fewer agents. Much like phone calls, synchronous messaging requires one agent per customer interaction. To meet demand and avoid long wait times, you need a higher volume of staff members at all times. This also means that you likely have to hire extra team members to support peak times. Asynchronous messaging can help with that. Since your support team can take part in multiple conversations at once, you can serve more customers with fewer agents. This is particularly helpful now when baseline support ticket requests have gone up 20% since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Zendesk.
  7. Get more opportunities to initiate a conversation. Since conversations are more flexible, customers are more likely to engage with customer service reps at different stages within the the customer lifecycle. Customers don’t have to set aside big chunks of time for conversations and your team will have more context to help serve them better. From starting a conversation from Maps with Apple Messages for Business or using Facebook Messenger to ask about size options, there’s ample opportunity to serve customers and increase revenue.

How to Make the Most Out of Asynchronous Messaging

Messaging as a whole has significantly grown in popularity since the pandemic began, and it has done so at a faster rate than any other channel. Support tickets coming in from messaging channels rose by 48%, compared to a 15% increase from live chat.

If you haven’t embraced asynchronous messaging yet, we have a few best practices to shape your approach and help you get started.

  • Design your asynchronous messaging strategy around your agents waiting for the customer—not the other way around. While it gives your agents the ability to manage multiple conversations, the benefit should really be for the customers’ flexibility. If you use asynchronous chat to spread your team too thin, the experience can end up feeling like email, which no one likes.
  • One way to improve response times and decrease the time agents spend per interaction? Use a chatbot to welcome customers and collect pertinent information beforehand. This way, customers get served quickly, and agents can spend their time problem-solving instead of gathering information.
  • Want to stand out? Don’t treat messaging like email. In 2020, Zendesk reported that it takes more than 11 hours, on average, to close messaging tickets. That’s compared to 30 minutes for voice and live chat and 11.5 hours for email or web form tickets.
    While messaging gives your team more flexibility to respond, customers still expect a response time in under 5 minutes. Try staffing it as you would with voice and live chat to start. Then, adjust as your team becomes more efficient and you invest in other ways to streamline service.
  • Remember to track actual work time. Overall, asynchronous messaging will have high-resolution times since you can resolve issues in two minutes, two hours, or two days. Giving customers the freedom to respond at their own convenience can superficially elevate those numbers. But remember: if a customer is responsible for the delay, a two-day conversation can result in a lower work time and a higher customer satisfaction rate. So take resolution times with a grain of salt. A conversational platform like Quiq can help you measure actual work time.

Start Using Asynchronous Messaging to Deliver Stellar CX

With customers flocking to messaging channels, it’s a great time for your customer service team to adopt asynchronous messaging. The best way to set your team up for success? With an Agentic AI platform, like Quiq.

Turn any messaging channel into an asynchronous experience. With Quiq, you can:

  • Manage conversations across multiple channels
  • Serve customers based on sentiment
  • Increase agent efficiency and boost customer satisfaction

Sign up for a Quiq demo and see how it can help you deploy asynchronous messaging and elevate your customer service.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is asynchronous messaging?

Asynchronous messaging is a communication method where messages are sent and received without requiring both parties to be present or active at the same time. It allows people to respond on their own schedule.

How is asynchronous messaging different from synchronous messaging?

Synchronous messaging requires real-time interaction (like phone calls or live chat), while asynchronous messaging supports delayed responses (like email or Slack messages).

What are common examples of asynchronous messaging?

Email, SMS/texting, project management comments, voicemail, collaborative tools like Slack or Teams, and ticketing systems all use asynchronous communication.

Why is asynchronous messaging important for teams?

It helps reduce interruptions, supports global or distributed teams across time zones, and allows people to respond more thoughtfully rather than immediately.

When should I use asynchronous messaging instead of synchronous communication?

Use it for non-urgent questions, feedback, updates, documentation, or anything that doesn’t require an immediate back-and-forth discussion.

Does asynchronous messaging hurt productivity?

Not when managed well, it’s often more productive. It reduces context switching, allows deep work, and creates a written record of decisions and conversations.

Can asynchronous messaging work for customer support or sales?

Yes. Many support and sales workflows now use async channels like email, in-product messaging, or chat with delayed response, offering flexibility for both reps and customers.

Are there downsides to asynchronous messaging?

If expectations aren’t clear, delays can happen. It’s helpful to set response-time norms so communication stays efficient.

How does asynchronous messaging improve documentation?

Everything is written, searchable, and trackable, making it easier for teams to revisit decisions, share knowledge, and onboard new members.

Can asynchronous and synchronous messaging be used together?

Absolutely. Many teams blend both asynchronous for everyday communication and synchronous methods (meetings, calls) for urgent or complex discussions.

What Is Conversational Commerce?

Posted on Max Fortis

Key Takeaways

  • Conversational commerce bridges chat and shopping — allowing customers to browse, ask questions, and complete purchases directly through messaging apps, AI agents, or voice assistants.
  • It meets customers where they already are — creating a faster, more convenient buying experience.
  • Personalization drives engagement — real-time, two-way conversations help brands tailor recommendations and build stronger customer relationships.
  • Automation improves efficiency — Agentic AI and integrations reduce manual workloads while ensuring round-the-clock support.
  • Getting started is simple — brands can launch conversational commerce by choosing familiar messaging channels and connecting them to existing systems like CRM or inventory tools for seamless experiences.

You’ve probably heard the term conversational commerce floating around — it’s catchy, sure, but what does it actually mean, and why is it getting so much attention? 

Here are a few conversational commerce examples in real life:

  • Consumers are shopping and completing transactions within a messaging conversation.
  • Brands help consumers shop by finding a store location or online promotions and deals.
  • Customer experience agents interact with customers to reschedule an appointment or a delivery.

These are just a few ways messaging has greased the conversational commerce wheel, making it easier and faster for businesses to get things done. In this article, we’ll take a close look at conversational commerce and what companies need to do to fully leverage its benefits.

Conversational Commerce Definition

Conversational commerce is the use of messaging apps, AI agents, or voice assistants to facilitate online shopping experiences – allowing customers to browse, ask questions, receive personalized recommendations, and make purchases through natural, real-time conversations. Conversational commerce bridges the gap between e-commerce and direct customer interaction to create a more seamless and personalized buying journey.

How Does Conversation Commerce Work?

Consider the smartphone — the device that rarely leaves anyone’s hands — and think about how much searching, browsing, buying, and texting happens on it every single day. Even before lockdowns accelerated digital habits, consumers were already drawn to the ease, convenience, and speed of shopping right from their phones.

Recently, we’ve seen a surge in use as more consumers have looked to online shopping, delivery, and curbside pickup to get through their days. According to comScore, consumers spend 85% of their smartphone time using only 5 apps, which tend to be either social media, messenger, or other media apps. It makes sense that businesses would marry the power of messaging with consumers’ preferences.

Conversational commerce works by integrating chat, messaging, or voice technology into the shopping experience, allowing customers to interact with brands in real time. Through AI-powered agents, messaging apps, or voice assistants, users can ask questions, get personalized recommendations, and complete purchases — all within a single, natural conversation rather than navigating multiple web pages or forms.

What Are the Different Types of Conversational Commerce?

AI Agents and Agentic AI

AI agents powered by agentic AI are transforming conversational commerce by going beyond simple, rule-based chatbots. These intelligent systems can understand context, make decisions, and take autonomous actions — from recommending products and managing orders to integrating with CRM or inventory systems. Unlike static chatbots, agentic AI learns from each interaction, delivering personalized, human-like conversations that improve over time and help drive higher conversions and customer satisfaction.

Voice Assistants

Voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant have brought conversational commerce into people’s homes and daily routines. By using simple voice commands, customers can reorder products, check delivery statuses, or discover new items without ever touching a screen. For brands, this channel offers an opportunity to build more natural, hands-free shopping experiences — especially for routine purchases or multitasking consumers who value convenience.

Messaging Apps

Messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS are the heart of conversational commerce. These channels allow brands to connect directly with customers through personalized messages, automated chat flows, and instant checkout options — all within the same conversation. Because customers already use these apps daily, conversational experiences here feel natural and convenient, helping businesses increase engagement, reduce friction, and boost conversion rates.

Why Invest In Conversational Commerce

Consumer expectations of speed and convenience have birthed new innovations that are opening up seamless communication between brands and customers. Gone are the days when customers were satisfied with dialing an 800 number or having to write an email to get help.

Whether it’s a chatbot on Messenger, someone managing direct messages on X, or taking orders via text message, consumers will choose brands that go that extra mile to make their experience personalized and efficient. Needless to say, businesses are investing to make that happen.

Consider these statistics by Gartner:

  • At least 60% of companies will use artificial intelligence to support digital conversational commerce.
  • 30% of digital commerce revenue growth will be attributable to artificial intelligence technologies, such as those that power conversational commerce.
  • 5% of all digital commerce transactions will come from a bot, such as those that power conversational commerce.

All of the major trends in conversational commerce over the past couple of decades have been in moving to where customers are. Rather than forcing customers to come to you, you go to where they are. The next generation of that is conversational commerce.

The Benefits of Conversational Commerce

Investing in conversational commerce also unlocks tangible business benefits that can elevate your customer experience and bottom line:

Improved Customer Experience

With AI and data-driven insights, conversational commerce allows brands to deliver more personalized interactions. These tools can understand customer preferences and intent, allowing for real-time, contextually relevant responses that feel tailored to the individual. Whether it’s personalized product recommendations via a chat widget, a voice assistant helping narrow down options, or live customer support through messaging apps, these conversational commerce examples help deepen engagement and drive loyalty. The interactions feel more natural and human, making the customer feel seen, heard, and supported throughout the buying journey.

Customer Loyalty and Retention

24/7 Availability

Conversational commerce strengthens customer loyalty by creating more personal, responsive interactions throughout the buying journey. When customers can get quick answers, personalized recommendations, and real-time support through chat or voice, they feel valued and understood — increasing trust and satisfaction. Over time, these seamless experiences encourage repeat purchases, boost lifetime value, and turn casual buyers into loyal brand advocates who keep coming back.

AI-powered systems and AI agents enable brands to offer round-the-clock support, meeting rising expectations for always-on service. This is especially valuable for global brands, allowing them to deliver consistent, timely assistance across time zones—without the overhead of a 24-hour support team.

Cost Reduction

Conversational commerce solutions are designed not only to improve customer satisfaction but also to reduce operational costs. By automating routine tasks and frequently asked questions, businesses can scale without heavily increasing headcount. Human agents are freed up to handle higher-impact conversations, improving overall efficiency and productivity.

Set Your Business Apart

Conversational commerce gives your brand a competitive edge by delivering personalized, real-time interactions that traditional e-commerce can’t match. By meeting customers where they already are — in chat apps, messaging platforms, or through voice assistants — your business creates a more seamless, human buying experience. This not only enhances convenience but also helps your brand stand out as innovative, approachable, and customer-first in a crowded digital marketplace.

Pitfalls of Conversational Commerce and Strategies to Avoid Them

Conversational commerce has the power to transform customer engagement by making shopping more seamless, personalized, and efficient. However, if implemented carelessly, it can lead to frustration, lost sales, and diminished trust. Below are some common pitfalls and practical strategies to avoid them.

1. Too much automation, not enough empathy

While automation saves time, relying solely on AI agents can make conversations feel robotic or impersonal. Customers expect understanding, not canned responses.

Strategy: Blend automation with a human touch and Agentic AI. Use AI to manage simple requests, but make it easy for users to connect with a live representative when situations become complex or emotional. This balance maintains efficiency while preserving empathy.

2. Disconnected systems and inconsistent experiences

An AI agent that isn’t connected to tools like CRM, order tracking, or inventory systems can’t deliver accurate or helpful responses.

Strategy: Integrate your conversational tools with backend systems. This ensures every interaction reflects real-time data from order status to personalized recommendations, for a consistent and satisfying experience.

3. Data privacy and security gaps

Because conversational platforms handle sensitive information, even small lapses in data security can damage brand credibility.

Strategy: Clearly communicate data usage policies, use encryption, and stay compliant with regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Transparency builds trust.

4. Lack of continuous optimization

Launching an AI agent is just the beginning. Without regular updates, responses can become outdated or inaccurate.

Strategy: Continuously analyze conversations, review customer feedback, and retrain AI models to keep the experience relevant and effective.

When executed thoughtfully, conversational commerce becomes more than a convenience — it’s a long-term strategy that deepens trust, strengthens relationships, and drives sustainable growth.

How Does Agentic AI Fit Into Conversational Commerce?

Agentic AImarks the next evolution of conversational commerce — shifting from simple, rule-based chatbots to intelligent systems that can reason, act, and learn autonomously. Instead of relying on preprogrammed responses, agentic AI understands context, intent, and customer goals, enabling it to manage more complex interactions from start to finish.

From reactive to proactive interactions

In practice, this means agentic AI can do much more than answer questions. It can anticipate customer needs, recommend relevant products, manage returns, or adjust an order before it ships. These systems continuously learn from each interaction, refining their understanding to deliver more natural, human-like conversations over time.

Deep integration across business systems

Agentic AI also connects seamlessly with backend platforms like CRM, inventory, and marketing automation tools. This allows it to pull real-time data into every conversation, letting customers know when an item will restock, applying loyalty rewards automatically, or sending follow-up care tips after a purchase.

Smarter, more personal commerce

By combining natural conversation with autonomous decision-making, agentic AI transforms everyday interactions into personalized, value-driven experiences. It helps brands scale customer engagement without losing the human touch — improving satisfaction, efficiency, and ultimately revenue.

The bridge between automation and empathy

In short, agentic AI is what makes conversational commerce truly intelligent. It closes the gap between automation and emotional connection, helping businesses move from reactive service to proactive engagement. For brands competing on experience, it’s not just a technological upgrade — it’s the foundation of the next generation of smarter, more human commerce.

How to Measure Success With Conversational Commerce

Measuring the success of conversational commerce means understanding how well your interactions drive both customer satisfaction and business results. The right mix of quantitative and qualitative metrics will give you a complete picture.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) to track include:

  • Conversion rate: How often conversations lead to a sale or completed action.
  • Average order value (AOV): Whether personalized recommendations increase purchase amounts.
  • Customer satisfaction (CSAT): How happy customers are with their conversational experience.

Engagement metrics that matter:

  • Response time: How quickly customers receive helpful answers.
  • Session length and repeat interactions: Indicators of meaningful engagement and ongoing value.
  • Retention and re-engagement rates: Show how conversations help build long-term loyalty.

Don’t forget qualitative insights:

  • Analyze customer feedback and sentiment to identify patterns in tone, helpfulness, and personalization.

Create A More Natural Brand-Consumer Relationship With Conversational Commerce

Conversational commerce, much like regular conversations, is meant to build relationships. Conversational commerce is an opportunity to move beyond email blasts, promotional posts on social media, and other communication methods that provide just one-way communication. SMS and other messaging apps enable you to keep your customers informed with updates, and allow them to respond on the same message thread. A real-time exchange of information? Now that’s a conversation.

Creating engaging experiences on these channels is better and easier if your agents have a single view of your customers. Quiq makes it easy for companies to manage conversations with an intuitive agent desktop and native integrations with Salesforce.com, Zendesk, Shopify, and Oracle Service Cloud.

Quiq is architected with an “API First” strategy, which means we seek to work in harmony with your existing systems. With Quiq’s integration frameworks, you can customize our UI to include data from your internal operations systems or synchronize conversation data into your reporting, customer, and other backend systems.

Get Started with Conversational Commerce

Getting started with conversational commerce isn’t complicated. Start with one new channel that customers visit every day, such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. Better still, start with text messaging (SMS), a universally accepted way to engage with consumers.

If you’re ready to put a conversational commerce platform to work so that your business can thrive, get a demo today to see our Agentic AI solution in action.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is conversational commerce?

Conversational commerce is the integration of chat, messaging, or voice technology into the shopping experience, allowing customers to interact with brands, ask questions, and make purchases through natural, real-time conversations.

What are the 4-types of eCommerce?

The four main types of eCommerce are B2C (Business-to-Consumer), B2B (Business-to-Business), C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer), and C2B (Consumer-to-Business) — each describing the relationship between buyers and sellers in online transactions.

What is chat commerce?

Chat commerce refers to buying and selling products or services directly through chat-based platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or live website chat — where customers can browse, ask for help, and complete transactions without leaving the conversation.

Are AI agents an example of conversational commerce?

Yes, AI agents or chatbots are key examples of conversational commerce because they enable automated, real-time communication that helps customers discover products, get support, and make purchases more efficiently.

What are the main benefits of conversational commerce?

It improves customer experience by offering convenience, faster responses, and personalized engagement. For businesses, it can increase conversions, boost retention, and reduce support costs.

How to Anticipate Customer Needs: Benefits & Tips

Posted on Lauren Winder

Key Takeaways

  • Anticipating what customers need before they ask strengthens trust and encourages long-term loyalty. Customers are more likely to stay with brands that simplify their experience.
  • Modern customers expect fast, frictionless interactions. Reducing steps and minimizing wait times helps deliver the convenience they’re looking for.
  • Sending updates, reminders, or support resources can prevent issues from becoming customer frustrations.
  • When service reps have the authority to resolve issues (e.g., offering discounts, replacing items), they can provide faster and more satisfying resolutions.
  • Tools like asynchronous messaging and pre-built responses help agents manage multiple conversations efficiently and reduce repetitive tasks.

When was the last time you heard a story about exceptional customer service? Or an innovative way a company figured out how to anticipate customer needs?

You know the kind: An observant hotel employee rescues a beloved stuffed animal. The considerate customer service agent sends a gift card to apologize for a shipping error. A software company sees you’re having trouble with their platform and sends you a private video walkthrough. These are all great examples, but what really makes a difference day after day is simply anticipating customer needs before they become problems.

Some companies seem to have an uncanny ability to predict and get ahead of their customers’ problems. But it doesn’t just happen. Exceptional customer service is designed with dedication built into company cultures.

We get it. Sometimes, merely meeting customer needs is a struggle. Anticipating them? Now that seems daunting. After all, you can’t read minds. The good news is that your customers don’t expect you to. But they do want you to anticipate their problems and help them reach a resolution as quickly as possible.

For all of the work it requires to make anticipating customer needs happen, the payoff is well worth it. Let’s take a look at how to anticipate customer needs and what it means to your customer service.

What Will You Gain by Anticipating Customer Needs?

In a word: loyalty.

We’ve touched on customer loyalty before, but we can’t stress its importance enough. In a digital-first age, customers have endless choices—and you need to make them choose you. Winning their loyalty has become more important than ever.

Customer service has become a major competitive advantage. According to Microsoft, 90% of customers say customer service is important to their brand choice and loyalty to that brand. And should those customer service expectations fall short, 58% of customers show little hesitation in severing the relationship. The days of implicit loyalty are long gone.

While customer loyalty should be enough of a draw, here are some more benefits to anticipating customer needs:

  • Increased revenue. When your customers feel taken care of, they’re more likely to come back. They’re looking for easy, frictionless experiences and will frequent businesses that provide them.
  • Less strain on your customer service team. Making things simple for customers will have a direct impact on your customer service team. Even when you provide more customer service, it’ll still be better for your agents. Customers will have fewer questions, there will be less urgency in their questions, and they’ll be less frustrated overall.

How to Predict Customer Problems

Every customer interaction tells a story; you just have to know what to listen for. Maybe it’s the same question popping up in chat, or a spike in response times when new updates roll out. These little signals often point to bigger issues waiting to surface. By pairing human intuition with data from your customer engagement tools, you can spot patterns early and take action before customers even realize there’s a problem. Encourage your team to share what they’re seeing, too. The more connected your people and data are, the easier it is to stay one step ahead and predict customer problems.

1. Set and Exceed Customer Expectations

Today’s customers don’t just want good service—they expect it. In fact, 55% of customers expect better service every year, according to Microsoft’s Global State of Customer Service Report. And HubSpot’s State of Service Report shows that 88% of businesses agree customer expectations have never been higher, with 79% noting that customers are more informed than ever.


So what does that mean for brands? It’s not about surprising and delighting customers once in a while; it’s about consistently setting clear expectations and then exceeding them. When customers know what to expect, they’re more likely to trust your brand. And when your team goes a step further by resolving issues faster, communicating proactively, or simplifying a complex process, you create moments that build loyalty.


The key is simplicity. Customers want frictionless experiences, easy navigation, and quick solutions. To deliver that, don’t just rely on intuition. Instead, ask your customers directly. Post-purchase surveys and satisfaction metrics like CSAT can reveal whether you’re meeting expectations. Take it one step further by talking to people who didn’t convert. Understanding why they walked away can highlight the gaps between what you think you’re delivering and what customers actually need.


In short, great service isn’t about random acts of delight—it’s about predictable excellence that customers can rely on every time.

2. Give Customers Convenient Service.

Regardless of whether they’re shopping for a vacation getaway, office supplies, or looking for subscription-based fashion, your customers expect convenience and fast service.

Just how fast? According to Hubspot’s Annual State of Service report, 90% of customers rate an “immediate” response as important or very important when they have a customer service question, which customers define as under 10 minutes.

Here are a few ways to give customers fast, convenient service:

  • Make customer service digital. Customers don’t want to interrupt their day to call customer service, wait on hold to speak to a representative, or spend days waiting for an email response. These slower communication methods are helpful in a pinch, but customers now want something more. They want digital customer service.

You don’t need a crystal ball to see that consumers are using mobile devices to communicate. Implementing business messaging to reduce wait times, deflect calls, and provide faster assistance disrupts and resets the consumer expectation that contacting a company for help is slow and inconvenient.

  • Be easily accessible. It sounds easy, right? If they found your website, surely they can find your customer service contact info hidden on your help page, which is hidden in your footer, or beneath a menu in your header. Yes, customers can probably find you, but make the process easier by being available to them wherever they are.

Have a web chat (also known as live chat) box on your website so customers can instantly chat with a customer service agent—no matter how far down your website rabbit hole they’ve gone.

Don’t stop there. Are your customers on Instagram? What about Twitter? The more places you’re available to answer questions, the happier your customers will be. With an omnichannel approach, they won’t have to go searching for help, and you’ll always have someone there when they need you.

At Quiq, we help our clients provide convenient ways for customers to engage with a brand and allow consumers to reach out to companies on their terms. Communicating with companies via messaging is still pretty new, and we’ve seen so many consumers respond with surprise and delight at the ability to text a company for help.

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3. Stop Communication Inefficiencies Before They Start

Many customer needs examples revolve around their time. As we mentioned above, inefficient communication just adds to your customers’ frustrations. You’ve likely experienced the struggle of having to navigate IVR systems (those interactive voice response systems that use automation to collect customer information and point them in the right direction). Whether you’re waiting on hold or waiting for an email response, that’s time you can’t get back.

During those moments of need, the last thing your customers want is to interrupt their day. Customer loyalty is won (or lost) in these critical moments.

Anticipate customers’ needs by working within their schedules and workflows. Here are a few ways to get started.

  • Make communication asynchronous. The biggest frustration when calling help centers is that you must put your day on hold to do so. Don’t force your customers to conform to your service center’s schedule. Instead, offer asynchronous messaging.

Communication methods like web chat and voice are helpful for getting answers to more complex questions, but they also require customers to block out their time and respond immediately. Asynchronous messaging, however, lets customers respond whenever they’re available. As a bonus, your customer service agents can handle multiple interactions at the same.

  • Take advantage of chatbots. Chatbots are the key to giving customers the immediate responses they crave without overwhelming your customer service team. They’re always available to provide simple answers to questions or, at the very least, acknowledge the customer’s question and let them know when an agent will be available to chat.

You can also use chatbots to help you anticipate customers’ needs by having them prompt customers with messages as they navigate through your website. Start with a welcome message, offer product suggestions based on browsing history, or provide answers to FAQs during checkout.

  • Eliminate repetitive tasks. Speed up redundant tasks by creating pre-build responses for common questions. Not only will you be able to speed up response times, but you’ll also ensure customers get the same accurate and helpful information no matter which customer service agent they talk to.

Imagine how your customers would perceive your brand if they were able to text a question to your contact center and get immediate help and resolution. No interruptions to their day, no inconvenience or waiting involved.

Aligning your people, processes, and technology to reduce effort and streamline communications will do wonders for your customer service. With each positive interaction, customers will anticipate great service well into the future.

When your customer expects to be taken care of, they can engage with your company without feeling that they have to play offense, which leads to more pleasant interactions for both sides.

4. Empower Agents to Make the Right Decisions for Customers.

Sometimes, anticipating customers’ needs means understanding that you can’t predict them all. Problems come up, mistakes get made, and website bugs happen. The trick is coming up with a plan to handle things that have no plan.

How do you do that? Empower customer service agents to take action to solve customer issues. Unfortunately, right now, not everyone has that power. Around 20% of service agents say their biggest challenge is not having the ability to make the right decisions for customers, according to Hubspot. But it’s likely that many more face this issue regularly.

Ensure your customer agents have the authority to do things like:

  • Offer discounts when customers encounter problems.
  • Expedite orders when shipments are lost or damaged.
  • Take as much time as they need to solve customer issues.

Without the authority to make these decisions on their own, agents have to wait for approvals or miss out on opportunities to surpass customer expectations.

5. Be Proactive, Not Reactive

The best customer experiences don’t just solve problems—they prevent them. Being proactive means spotting friction before it frustrates your customers. And customers agree— more than two-thirds want an organization to reach out and engage with proactive customer notifications, according to Microsoft. Maybe your data shows a spike in chat volume after product updates, or your agents notice the same questions popping up in support. Use those signals to reach out early, update FAQs, or automate helpful prompts before customers even have to ask.

Proactive service builds confidence. It shows customers you’re paying attention, that their time matters, and that you’re committed to constant improvement. Over time, this mindset turns reactive support teams into trusted partners—reducing inbound volume while boosting loyalty and satisfaction.

Being proactive can be as simple as sending tracking links to limit “where’s my order?” inquiries. Consider collecting top customer questions and sharing them during the purchasing process, or feed answers to an AI Agent for quick customer service response times.

6. Harness Agentic AI to Anticipate Customer Needs

Anticipating customer needs used to rely on intuition and experience—but Agentic AI takes it a step further. By combining real-time data with autonomous decision-making, Agentic AI can detect patterns, predict intent, and act before a human agent even steps in. For example, it can recognize when a customer is likely to churn, surface the right solution instantly, or trigger proactive outreach before an issue becomes a ticket.

Unlike traditional AI that waits for input, Agentic AI takes initiative because it’s learning from every interaction to continuously improve how it serves customers. This shift from reactive to anticipatory service helps brands deliver faster resolutions, smoother experiences, and a level of personalization that feels effortless. The result? Customers who feel seen, supported, and understood—long before they ever need to ask.

Equip Your Team with the Tools to Meet Future Needs.

You may not be able to predict every customer need, but you can make sure your team is always ready for whatever comes next. By setting clear expectations, spotting early signals, and leveraging AI to anticipate challenges, you can transform customer service from reactive to remarkably proactive.

At the heart of it all, customers want the same thing: quick, effortless resolutions and brands that truly understand them. Quiq’s Agentic AI platform helps leading companies deliver just that—empowering teams to anticipate needs, automate intelligently, and personalize every interaction at scale.Want to see how it all comes together? Download the Agentic AI for CX Buyer’s Kit to explore how Agentic AI can help your organization stay one step ahead of every customer need.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What does it mean to anticipate customer needs?

Anticipating customer needs means predicting questions, problems, or preferences before customers voice them and then taking proactive steps to deliver solutions or information ahead of time.

Why is anticipating customer needs important for customer service?

It helps reduce frustration, prevent repetitive inquiries, and make customers feel understood. This level of foresight builds trust, loyalty, and long-term retention.

How can businesses start anticipating customer needs?

Start by analyzing customer data and feedback to identify recurring issues or requests. Then, use automation tools like AI agents or AI-powered prompts to offer solutions in advance.

What tools help teams anticipate and respond faster?

Messaging platforms that support asynchronous conversations, proactive chat triggers, and real-time data insights – like Quiq – enable teams to respond efficiently and personalize interactions at scale.

How does proactive communication improve the customer experience?

Proactive communication keeps customers informed and reassured. Sending shipping updates, appointment reminders, or self-service resources reduces uncertainty and enhances satisfaction.

What’s the difference between reactive and proactive customer service?

Reactive service responds only when a customer reaches out. Proactive service identifies needs and resolves potential issues beforehand – resulting in smoother, faster, and more positive interactions.

How can I best use customer feedback to improve products and service?

Customer feedback is one of the most valuable sources of insight your business has, as it tells you exactly where expectations are being met or missed. Start by categorizing feedback into themes like product usability, service experience, and communication. Then, use AI-driven sentiment analysis to identify trends at scale and spot emerging issues early. Share these insights cross-functionally between support, product, and marketing so improvements happen holistically, not in silos. Finally, close the loop by letting customers know when their feedback inspired change. It builds trust and shows you’re listening.

What metrics track proactive customer service effectiveness?

Measuring proactive service is about tracking prevention and perception. Core metrics include:

  • First Contact Resolution (FCR): Are customers getting answers before they need to reach out again?
  • Ticket Deflection Rate: How often are knowledge base articles, AI agents, or proactive alerts resolving issues before they become tickets?
  • Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) & Net Promoter Score (NPS): Gauge how proactive interactions impact sentiment.
  • Average Handle Time (AHT): When you anticipate needs effectively, resolutions should become faster and smoother.
  • Customer Effort Score (CES): A lower effort score means your proactive efforts are paying off.

Together, these metrics reveal how well your team is turning foresight into seamless customer experiences.

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Meet Quiq’s New Agentic AI Analyst: Insights Across Human + AI Agent Conversations

Posted on Max Fortis

Key Takeaways

  • Say hello to Quiq’s Conversation Analyst. Meet the next evolution in customer experience analytics: an agentic, purpose-built solution now available to transform how you understand and optimize every conversation.
  • Generate custom prompts and metrics. Go beyond rigid, out-of-the-box analytics with the ability to create custom prompts and metrics that match your business objectives, ensuring insights are as unique and dynamic as your brand.
  • Analyze human and AI agent conversations. Measure and drill into every conversation — whether handled by a human agent, AI agent, or both — on a single, unified platform that delivers a holistic view of your customer interactions.
  • Harness the full power of agentic AI. Conversation Analysts are managed in Quiq’s enterprise-grade AI Studio, where they leverage LLM-reasoning capabilities, interpret complex conversational context, and autonomously take action across systems.

Quantitative metrics like first contact resolution, average resolution time, and escalation rate are critical for identifying opportunities to elevate the customer experience. But they only tell part of the story. 

Getting the full picture and understanding how to improve the customer experience also requires qualitative insights. Did the customer have to repeat themselves? Was the escalation necessary? Is the issue fully resolved, or is the customer merely contained but still upset?

Unfortunately, answering these types of questions usually requires manual analysis across thousands of individual conversations. 

Well, not anymore: Meet Quiq’s Conversation Analysts.

What Is a Conversation Analyst?

Quiq’s Conversation Analyst is the first type of agentic AI analyst built to empower CX leaders to discover custom, actionable insights at speed and scale across human and AI agent conversations. It runs instantly at the end of every Quiq conversation and leverages the full reasoning power of LLMs plus business logic to adapt its analyses based on conversational context and take appropriate next steps, just like a human would. 

Conversation Analysts are managed in Quiq’s AI Studio, and all metrics are accessible via Quiq Insights. CX leaders can view them in aggregate, as well as drill down into any AI-generated metric to narrow thousands of conversations into manageable subsets for deeper analysis, all in mere seconds.

“At Spirit, Quiq’s Conversation Analyst has become a critical part of how we operate,” says Vanessa Hardy-Bowen, Director of Guest Care and Contact Centers for Spirit Airlines. “It gives the team and I real-time visibility into how both our human and AI agents handle conversations, not just checking boxes on compliance, but truly resolving issues with care and empathy. What I appreciate most is how quickly it confirms real resolution and flags conversations tied to sensitive areas like consumer rights or accessibility, so we can take action before anything escalates. It’s helped us operate smarter and more proactively, and ultimately raise the standard of what great guest care should feel like.”

Measure What Matters to Your Business with Supercharged Qualitative Analysis

Every company is different, yet most AI for CX vendors force their clients to measure success using a limited variety of out-of-the-box, quantitative metrics. Qualitative metrics such as CSAT or NPS are traditionally user-reported, often resulting in biased, incomplete datasets, while solutions that advertise AI-generated options are fixed.

Quiq Insights has always taken these capabilities to the next level by allowing CX teams to configure and customize metrics for their specific channels, funnels, and more. But when we noticed our customers leveraging the flexibility of AI Studio to create AI-generated CSAT score estimates and topics at the end of every conversation, we saw the opportunity to supercharge qualitative analysis in Quiq.

Quiq Conversation Analysts enable CX teams to create totally custom prompts and metrics. You have complete control over metric definitions, measurement criteria, category and topic taxonomy, and rollup reporting. This means insights actually align with how your business operates — not how a vendor thinks you should measure success.

Analyze Both Human and AI Agent Conversations in a Single Platform

In the past, CX teams often had to use separate AI analytics tools to assess AI versus human agent performance. Trying to connect the dots when conversations transfer across channels and/or agents is a highly manual and error-prone process that results in major blind spots.

In contrast, Quiq Conversation Analysts analyze both human and AI agent conversations in a single platform — including those that happen in the same thread. Cost- and time-savings aside, this approach unlocks unmatched visibility that leads to new metrics, more accurate attribution, and unified insights across the entire customer journey.

With Quiq’s Conversation Analyst, CX teams can now discover previously hidden opportunities to optimize crucial human/AI agent intersection points that ultimately impact the end-to-end customer experience. For example, you can:

  • Track how well AI agents prepare customers before handoff to humans
  • Identify additional automation opportunities
  • Spot when human agents contradict AI-provided information
  • Highlight when human agents ask AI-escalated customers to repeat themselves
  • Measure end-to-end resolution regardless of who handled each turn
  • And so much more!

Harness the Full Power of Agentic AI in Quiq’s AI Studio

By now it should be obvious that Quiq Conversation Analysts aren’t just another conversation summary or topic tagging tool. They’re fully agentic AI agents that are built and managed in Quiq’s enterprise-grade AI lifecycle management platform: AI Studio. 

We already mentioned Conversational Analysts leverage the full communication and reasoning power of LLMs combined with business logic to contextually understand and analyze complex, nuanced conversations. AI Studio also gives them access to the same knowledge and systems human agents use. 

This means they can query knowledge bases and product catalogs to verify claims made by AI or human agents, confirm adherence to procedures or policies, identify content that should have been shared, and spot documentation gaps — all within their analyses. It also means they can autonomously take action on the information and insights they uncover. For example, Conversational Analysts can call an API to send a Slack message to your legal team if a conversation includes a sensitive topic, or update a customer record in your CRM to flag churn-risk signals.

Last but certainly not least, Conversation Analysts come with all the enterprise-grade AI Studio features and functionality Quiq customers have come to know, love, and depend on. These include full “clear box” observability and safe staging with version control and easy rollback, so you can be confident your Conversation Analyst is generating meaningful and accurate insights before launch.

Analyst in AI Studio

Learn More and Get Started

With Quiq’s Conversation Analysts, CX leaders can get a more custom, complete, and actionable view of their entire customer journey — without spending hours reading through conversations for qualitative insights or connecting the dots across human and AI agent interactions. 

The best part? Getting started is easy.

Already a Quiq client? Simply contact your account manager and they can help you take the next step. New to Quiq? All you have to do is book a demo. Want to do more of your own research before taking the plunge? Check out our AI analyst documentation here.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are quantitative vs. qualitative CX metrics?

Quantitative CX metrics provide numerical data, such as resolution times or escalation rates, that measure specific aspects of performance. In contrast, qualitative CX metrics offer deeper context by analyzing the actual content of customer conversations to understand the ‘why’ behind the numbers. Combining both quantitative and qualitative insights is crucial for gaining a complete and actionable view of your customer experience.

What’s an AI Conversation Analyst?

A conversation analyst is an advanced, agentic AI tool designed to help CX leaders efficiently understand customer interactions at a deeper level. Quiq’s Conversation Analyst automatically examines every conversation with both human and AI agents, providing custom, actionable insights with speed and scale. It uses the reasoning power of large language models (LLMs) combined with specific business logic to instantly analyze conversational context, identify opportunities for improvement, and take relevant actions across systems, much like a human analyst would.

What types of insights does a Conversation Analyst provide?

Since Quiq Conversation Analysts allow CX teams to create totally custom prompts and metrics, the possibilities are endless. However, some sample metrics include: 

  • Appropriate escalation
  • Estimated customer effort score
  • Intent drift
  • Knowledge gaps
  • Estimated NPS
  • Agent professionalism score
  • Risk assessment
  • Duplicate information analysis
  • Reason for contact
  • Estimated CSAT score
How is Quiq’s Conversation Analyst different from typical AI analytics tools?

Most AI analytics tools analyze either AI agent or human agent conversations, forcing CX leaders to run separate analytics stacks and creating blind spots when conversations transfer between channels or agents. Many ship fixed metrics and canned scores that can’t be customized, and teams are told what topics exist rather than defining their own. They can’t trigger actions, vary metrics by scenario, or adapt outputs beyond rigid templates.

In contrast, Quiq’s Conversation Analyst analyzes conversations featuring AI agents, human agents, or both in a single platform. CX teams can customize metrics to their unique industry, policies, goals, and more. Quiq’s AI analyst can adapt and contextually assess complex, nuanced, multi-turn conversations, and take action across third-party systems.

8 Customer Retention Strategies That Work

Posted on Allyson Scott

Key Takeaways

  • Retention drives growth: Keeping existing customers is far less costly than acquiring new ones, and loyal customers spend nearly 70% more.
  • Loyalty builds advocacy: Repeat customers are more likely to recommend your brand and provide valuable feedback through surveys like CSAT and NPS.
  • Track the right metrics: Monitoring Customer Retention Rate (CRR) alongside Cost per Acquisition (CPA) gives you a clearer picture of profitability and long-term success.
  • Effective strategies matter: From building relationships on shared values to empowering customer service teams, offering omnichannel support, personalizing communications, and rewarding loyalty can significantly improve retention.
  • Feedback fuels improvement: Surveys, complaints, and direct customer input are opportunities to make meaningful adjustments that keep customers engaged.
  • Sustainable success: Strong customer retention doesn’t just stabilize revenue, it creates lasting relationships that separate enduring businesses from short-lived ones.

Recruiting new customers costs seven to nine times as much as it does to keep current customers from leaving. Besides the obvious foregone revenue, dissatisfied customers are not going to recommend you to the people they know, and they might even go out of their way to tell their friends and family about their negative experiences. This kind of fallout can have long-term consequences for customer retention.

For all these reasons, it’s imperative not to let customers slip away – and one of the best ways of doing that is to implement an effective customer retention strategy.

Even a small increase in customer retention could substantially improve your bottom line, but customer retention can be extremely challenging. Having said that, enhancing customer retention can be challenging and generally requires an intentional strategy that many companies don’t choose to prioritize.

In this article, we will examine the big picture of why improving customer retention is important and offer customer retention strategies that any customer experience team can implement to keep its customers happy and loyal.

What Is Customer Retention?

“Customer retention” refers to any effort to keep a customer satisfied enough with you to keep them using your product or service.

Customer retention is an important aspect of business strategy and, done correctly, can help you gain a competitive advantage. Tragically, many businesses don’t invest enough in it – they spend vast amounts of time and money trying to bring in new customers while neglecting the ones they’ve already worked so hard to get.

But with the right approach and high-quality service, there’s no reason that excellent customer retention can’t be one of the things setting you apart.

Why Is Customer Retention Important?

We’ve already established that getting new customers is more expensive than keeping old ones, but it’s also worth pointing out that existing customers spend an average of almost 70% more than new customers.

Even better, loyal customers are far more likely to share their experiences with their social circles and purchase from your company again.

These customers are not only your best cheerleaders, they also help you better understand your brand in various other ways, like via CSAT and NPS (Net Promoter Score®) surveys. If you ask them, they will provide honest feedback about your product and customer service, allowing you to make the course corrections required to succeed. We’ll have more to say about all of this in the section on improving customer retention strategies that drive long-term customer retention.

Calculating Your Customer Retention Rate

Determining your current customer retention rate (CRR) is an important first step in improving customer retention.

The CRR measures how many customers are retained over a particular period (usually one year) and allows you to gauge the long-term profitability of your marketing and sales efforts. It’s also a key metric for evaluating the success of your overall customer retention strategies. The math is pretty straightforward: we just need to divide the number of repeat customers by the total number of active customers over the same time period.

So, if we have 50 return customers and 200 active customers for the year 2023, our CRR would be 25%.

A related metric worth tracking is the cost per acquisition (CPA). The CPA measures the cost a company incurs to acquire one new customer (ideally, a new customer who becomes loyal to the company’s brand).

If you have both the CRR and the CPA, you should have a good chunk of the context needed to make smart, data-driven decisions. If you want to increase your retention rate, read the next section.

8 Effective Customer Retention Strategies

Now that we’ve made a strong case for trying to enhance customer retention, let’s discuss specific strategies that’ll help you actually do it.

1. Good Values Build Good Relationships

Many companies have “mission” or “vision” statements that explicitly state the values they live by. Though these statements are sometimes viewed as hot air that only serves to give the marketing team something to put on the company website, the truth is that your processes, the quality of your products, and the way you treat your customers are all a reflection of them.

This is a long way to say that values are important, but you don’t have to take our word for it. When asked, many customers who stated they had a relationship with a brand indicated that it was due to shared values. This isn’t surprising – customers will naturally be attracted to brands that mirror their beliefs while enhancing their lifestyles, especially when they’re younger.

Building a brand that your customers can easily relate to will foster trust. This is key to creating strong relationships and, by extension, a successful business. Let your customers know what you stand for, and be sure to act on these convictions (by donating to worthy causes, for example). Having common values with your customers makes it easier to attract and retain them.

2. Empower Your Customer Service Team With Ongoing Feedback and Training

As a CX leader tasked with building, operationalizing, and scaling your contact center, you undoubtedly think about human agents’ interactions with customers. An important element in that equation is how you empower your team of customer service representatives to grow and build trust with your customers.

To achieve this, focus on comprehensive training programs that emphasize empathy, active listening, and effective problem-solving. For instance, role-playing scenarios can prepare agents to handle customer feedback with confidence and care. Implementing regular workshops and continuous learning can help your team stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices.

Implementing a customer feedback loop can help your team understand and respond to customer needs more effectively. Encourage your agents to ask for feedback after interactions and use this information to improve service delivery. Monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) such as customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), Net Promoter Scores® (NPS), and first-call resolution rates can provide valuable insights into how well your team is building trust.

3. Make Yourself Easy to Work With

A great way to stand out is by making it as easy as possible for customers to find what they need. If your documentation or website is complex or confusing, this is certain to become a problem at one point or another. Clear, concise information, on the other hand, can help enhance customer retention.

Take the issue of refunds. If a customer is looking for a refund, they’re obviously dissatisfied. How much worse will they feel if they must then struggle to find a way to contact you, only to be faced with a maze of robotic voices endlessly repeating a menu of options?

If your agents are sympathetic and your information is easy to navigate, a refund needn’t be the end of a professional relationship. More broadly, it pays to invest the time required to make your content easy to follow and your agents easy to contact. Frustration at this level can erode trust and severely impact customer retention.

4. Offer Omnichannel Customer Support

Customers love great offers and discounts, but they also love it when they can get help solving problems with as little friction as possible.

A good way to do this (and improve customer retention simultaneously) is to provide support through the channels that make the most sense for your customers. There are a few other advantages to this omnichannel approach:

  • It enables you to respond very quickly to incoming queries, which can be a huge advantage for reasons already discussed above.
  • By integrating with technology like large language models, you can personalize your replies at scale and even offer services like real-time translation.
  • You can drive faster resolution times, contributing to customer satisfaction and retention.

5. Prioritize Quick Turnarounds

As a general rule, people have never enjoyed waiting around.

For this reason, it pays to focus on replying to issues as quickly as possible.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to resolve an issue right off the bat. Many customers will feel less anxious and frustrated simply by knowing they’ve been heard and someone is working on a solution. Respond immediately, even if it’s just to say, “We’re sorry you’re running into issues, and we’re committed to getting you up and running again as soon as possible.”

You can also take this initial message as an opportunity to manage expectations about how long it will take to find a solution. Obviously, some problems are relatively straightforward, while others are more substantial, and you can communicate that to the customer (assuming it’s appropriate to do so). It’s never fun to hear that you’ll have to wait a week to get some issue sorted out, but it’s far worse to find that out after you’ve already made a bunch of plans that are difficult to change.

6. Be Sure to Personalize Your Communications

Artificial intelligence has a long history of delivering personalized content. You’re probably familiar with Spotify, which can discover patterns in the music and podcasts you enjoy and use algorithms to recommend songs and artists that align with your tastes.

With the power of Agentic AI, platforms like Quiq are elevating this to unprecedented levels. Agentic AI enables AI agents to customize customer interactions and improve their customer journey based on past preferences and interactions.

Once upon a time, only human agents could analyze a customer’s profile and tailor their responses with relevant information. Now, a well-optimized generative language model can achieve this almost instantaneously – and on a much larger scale.

7. Use Customer Feedback to Your Advantage

Customer data can help determine your customers’ needs, and surveys are an effective way to gather that data, including NPS (Net Promoter Score®) surveys. Some of the benefits of conducting customer surveys include:

  • They’re a great way to interact with your customers
  • Customers tend to give honest and open feedback
  • These customers will be more likely to give feedback in the future if they see changes implemented based on prior concerns
  • Survey feedback can result in positive adjustments to your products, services, or processes
  • Surveys show your customers that you value their opinions and are willing to do whatever it takes to make them happy.
  • It can help ensure you’re pursuing the right targeting strategy
  • They can help you identify dissatisfied customers before they leave and create campaigns or offers to win them back

Of course, surveys aren’t the only way to do this; you can also treat customer complaints that come through other feedback channels in a similar manner.

Regardless of how you choose to proceed, interacting with your customers in this productive, proactive way is a great opportunity. Seventy percent of customers who complain will purchase your product again if their complaints are favorably resolved.

8. Reward Loyalty

Though nothing beats exceptional customer service, thoughtful gestures go a long way in fostering a community. In addition to standard discounts and other offers, think of things that will make your customers feel good about using your product.

A thank-you note or any positive acknowledgment can keep your customers coming back, thus enhancing your customer retention rate.

Building Customer Relationships

Customers are the foundation of any business. But it’s not enough to just get customers; you must also ensure that you invest in improving customer retention. Today, customer retention is what separates sustainable growth from short-lived success. You can do this by using the strategies presented in this post to build world-class relationships with your customers.

Want more effective customer retention strategies? Check out our free guide to uncover the 4 major silos hurting your customers, agents, and business. Get actionable tips on how to shatter them and boost your customer retention rates with agentic AI.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do I know if my customer retention strategy is working?

Start by tracking your Customer Retention Rate (CRR), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Net Promoter Score (NPS). If these metrics are trending upward and repeat purchase or renewal rates are increasing, your strategy is on the right track. You can also measure reductions in churn and improved lifetime value (CLV).

Which customer retention strategy delivers the fastest results?

While results vary by industry, prioritizing quick response times and omnichannel support often yields immediate impact. Customers notice when you’re easy to reach and proactive in resolving issues. Acknowledging their concern promptly can quickly build trust and prevent churn.

How can AI improve customer retention?

AI helps personalize interactions at scale. With agentic AI, CX leaders can deliver hyper-relevant communications, anticipate customer needs, and provide faster resolutions through automation. This frees up human agents to focus on high-value, relationship-building conversations.

Should small businesses focus on retention as much as large enterprises?

Yes. In fact, small businesses often rely more heavily on repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals. Retention strategies, such as personalized communication, loyalty rewards, and attentive customer service, can give smaller companies a competitive edge.