Unless you’re Rip Van Winkle and have been taking a long nap, you’re well aware that “improving the customer experience” is now a top priority—if not the top one—for C-suite executives worldwide. In fact, the fastest-growing executive title over the past few years in large enterprises has been some variation on “Chief Customer Relationship Officer (CCRO).”
You are also well aware of the myriad of technological innovations emerging not only from the contact center solutions vendor community but also from vendors of customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and various sales and marketing solutions providers. In addition, vendors of all these solutions are turning to the cloud, hybrid solutions, and integration with legacy on-premises systems as they seek to provide enterprises with the tools and business intelligence they need to be more responsive.
The reason for this intense focus is obvious. In an omnichannel environment, where customers expect quick answers to their questions and solutions to their problems, where alternatives are just a click or touch away, and where a bad experience can go viral in seconds, keeping customers satisfied must be the top priority. What this means is the need not only to listen to the voice of the customer but to truly hear what they are saying and be able to respond. It also requires a holistic approach to sharing customer data—one that can be used not only to satisfy them initially but also as a means to obtain permission to upsell and turn them into valued, loyal brand advocates.
Having said all that about what the technology is and what it can do, questions remain regarding how to improve the customer experience.
- In an omni-channel world, what exactly is the customer experience?
- What are customers' expectations? And how do they differ based on their preferred methods of interaction?
- What are the correct key performance indicators (KPIs) for evaluating success based on the growth in the number of options customers are using to interact?
These are complex questions whose answers are changing rapidly. A simple way to think about this is that, when it comes to customer engagement, having a strategy that takes into account the needs of multiple lines of business (LOBs) with a clear delineation of responsibilities and accountabilities is now a prerequisite for success. Equally important, in the evolving permission-based world in which we live, is ensuring that technology does not become merely a checklist item, since the last thing a company needs is to literally and figuratively wear out its welcome. Knowing which tool is best for the job and when to use it is crucial.
From the enterprise’s perspective, improving the customer experience is all about metrics. From a customer’s perspective, the view is much more basic and emotional. We all interact with companies because of a specific intent. We typically don’t visit a company’s website because we woke up at 3:00 a.m. with a sudden craving for more information. We visit websites and contact companies because we have questions and problems that need to be resolved. Companies may want to optimize the time they spend resolving issues, but the reverse is also true. Customers don’t want their time wasted. After all, time is the one precious resource we cannot create more of.
This is why having a self-service portal that’s hard to navigate is such a bad idea. FAQs that don’t list my problem are annoying. Sending emails that go unanswered for days is beyond frustrating. And clicking to connect via chat or phone only to reach someone who either lacks the skills needed to provide help and/or isn’t authorized to take the necessary steps to resolve my issue—especially in this Internet age of real-time interactions—is absolutely unacceptable. As I said, just because you can implement technology doesn’t mean you should if you don’t understand the consequences.
The bottom line when it comes to the question of what constitutes a compelling customer experience is, not surprisingly, the bottom line. Is your company retaining existing customers, encouraging them to buy more when it’s time to renew, and are your campaigns to attract new customers working?
Hot spots of customer concern need to be identified faster than ever, and corrective measures applied to the issues causing flare-ups. In fact, the information gathered is invaluable—not only for putting out fires but also for planning purposes. This is why Big Data and sophisticated analytics are becoming “must-haves.”
Executive buy-in across the enterprise is also critical. This has become increasingly evident as marketing—rather than IT—takes control of a growing portion of the budget for customer interactions. Obviously, breaking down silos so that a more contextual and richer customer profile can be created and shared—and so that this is done by the right people at the right time and in the right way—is also vital.
We are at what should rightly be considered the dawn of a new era in customer interactions between vendors and customers. The good news is that we live in very exciting times, and solution providers have stepped up their innovations to create long-term, differentiated value at a time when how people are treated matters as much as—if not more than—price.
Given the surveys showing that most companies still have a long way to go in improving their customer satisfaction scores, the rise to prominence of C-level executives with customer experience titles is an encouraging development. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.” Plus, this is a conversation that is just beginning. Where it goes is up to your decisions and how you carry them out.
I do have one last piece of advice. There is a popular TV show in the U.S. called Undercover Boss. Its entertainment value comes from CEOs hiding their identities, working on the front lines of their businesses, and being almost always surprised by how customers are treated. They invariably return with a list of things to fix in both the short and long term. A good place to start if a company truly wants to know how to improve the customer experience would be for every C-level executive to go undercover and be forced to interact with their organization the way an average customer does. My suspicion is that things would change. In fact, it would likely lead to a new conversation with solution providers—hopefully, as depicted in the movie Casablanca It ends with Humphrey Bogart turning to Claude Raines and saying, “Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
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