The Customer Experience Conundrum
The world is changing rapidly, as a result of globalization, innovation, digital transformation and much more. Today, customers live in a world where they want 24/7 access for convenience, reliable, and fast service or product, and knowledgeable and empowered employee to solve their issues right away. So what does this mean? It means customer experience (CX) is different today and will continue to evolve in the future. Organizations are realizing that CX is taking precedence over product and price as the brand differentiator. As a result, most organizations are investing or have already invested heavily in the Voice of the Customer (VOC) enterprise feedback management software (EFM) platform.
CX is a growing business and it’s getting bigger. Some estimates indicate the implementation of CX program at $11 billion+ globally by 2020. With all the investment in CX, many C-suite executives will admit that they have not seen the return on their investment or impact on CX. Executives and CX leaders must realize that technology alone will not transform CX; they must evolve their VOC program. As organizations mature in their CX journey, opportunity exists to integrate the key foundational elements to transform your CX before you can see the impact and measure it.
Organizations often turn to technology to drive customer experience. We are in the people business so to drive CX, organizations must assign a dedicated CX leader and team to lead the change. Create journey maps and personas to understand the experiences customers have at different touchpoints with the brand, from discovery to presales to customer service and beyond. Select an overall metric i.e. Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), as well as gather other feedback across touchpoints to track and monitor CX.
Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) platform: Technology is an enabler and organizations must select an EFM platform that addresses the CX vision. Ensure the platform provides the following key capabilities:
1) Manage VOC survey across different channels, including email and phone, among others
CX is a growing business and it’s getting bigger. Some estimates indicate the implementation of CX program at $11 billion+ globally by 2020. With all the investment in CX, many C-suite executives will admit that they have not seen the return on their investment or impact on CX. Executives and CX leaders must realize that technology alone will not transform CX; they must evolve their VOC program. As organizations mature in their CX journey, opportunity exists to integrate the key foundational elements to transform your CX before you can see the impact and measure it.
Organizations often turn to technology to drive customer experience. We are in the people business so to drive CX, organizations must assign a dedicated CX leader and team to lead the change. Create journey maps and personas to understand the experiences customers have at different touchpoints with the brand, from discovery to presales to customer service and beyond. Select an overall metric i.e. Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), as well as gather other feedback across touchpoints to track and monitor CX.
Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) platform: Technology is an enabler and organizations must select an EFM platform that addresses the CX vision. Ensure the platform provides the following key capabilities:
1) Manage VOC survey across different channels, including email and phone, among others
2) Provide closing the loop (CTL) functionality to follow-up with customers and
3) Analyze and communicate VOC results internally and externally. Additionally, evaluate the platform from a security and scalable perspective as well.
Customers generate revenue and employees drive the experience. Great CX starts with satisfied employees. EX should follow the same approach as CX in terms of understanding employee needs by creating employee journey map and personas. Given the ongoing technology automation and new ways of working, human interaction matters. Based on estimates, 82 percent of U.S. and 74 percent of non-US consumers still want to talk to humans to solve their problems. Organizations must make sure customer-facing employees are knowledgeable and empowered to address customer needs in real time. Create a feedback loop with employees through different channels and engage them for their insight and ideas based on their customer interactions.
Innovation dedicated to CX is new to most organizations and must begin from within. The time is ripe to set up employee-led innovation labs tied to CX to improve the product, service or processes. Organizations must encourage and focus on a test and learn mindset and start with “one” change before embarking on bigger changes. Innovations such as robotic process automation (RPA), chatbots, and workflow automation will improve customer and employee experience based on the use case for each situation considering cost benefit trade-off.
Conclusion
It’s important to remember that customer experience is an evolving journey. Customers are increasingly loyal to the retailers, products, brands and devices that focus on convenience, speed, and employees that provide knowledgeable service as the key elements of a positive customer experience. With the rapid pace of continuous disruption, organizations must be agile and implement these changes themselves or partner with a strategic service provider who understands end-to-end CX transformation and can help integrate EFM platform, analytics, employee experience and innovation while paying equal attention to delivering meaningful financial results to solve the CX conundrum.
3) Analyze and communicate VOC results internally and externally. Additionally, evaluate the platform from a security and scalable perspective as well.
Analytics is the engine to analyze data, take actions, and drive CX enhancement based on customer feedback. Today, analysis focuses on text analytics and key drivers using VOC data which takes immense time and is a relatively expensive process. Now is the time to think beyond just the VOC data and create a 360° view of the customer using VOC, financial data, operational data and external data. The real opportunity is using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyze structured and unstructured data from different sources to make near real-time decisions that positively impact CX and predict the return on customer experience investment (ROCXI).Executives and CX leaders must realize that technology alone will not transform CX; they must evolve their VOC program
Customers generate revenue and employees drive the experience. Great CX starts with satisfied employees. EX should follow the same approach as CX in terms of understanding employee needs by creating employee journey map and personas. Given the ongoing technology automation and new ways of working, human interaction matters. Based on estimates, 82 percent of U.S. and 74 percent of non-US consumers still want to talk to humans to solve their problems. Organizations must make sure customer-facing employees are knowledgeable and empowered to address customer needs in real time. Create a feedback loop with employees through different channels and engage them for their insight and ideas based on their customer interactions.
Innovation dedicated to CX is new to most organizations and must begin from within. The time is ripe to set up employee-led innovation labs tied to CX to improve the product, service or processes. Organizations must encourage and focus on a test and learn mindset and start with “one” change before embarking on bigger changes. Innovations such as robotic process automation (RPA), chatbots, and workflow automation will improve customer and employee experience based on the use case for each situation considering cost benefit trade-off.
Conclusion
It’s important to remember that customer experience is an evolving journey. Customers are increasingly loyal to the retailers, products, brands and devices that focus on convenience, speed, and employees that provide knowledgeable service as the key elements of a positive customer experience. With the rapid pace of continuous disruption, organizations must be agile and implement these changes themselves or partner with a strategic service provider who understands end-to-end CX transformation and can help integrate EFM platform, analytics, employee experience and innovation while paying equal attention to delivering meaningful financial results to solve the CX conundrum.
