Recently I was at a CXO round table on customer experience management, and shared the stage with industry leaders across BFSI, telecom and offshoring verticals. It came as no surprise the disruption in consumer behavior is on every top exec’s mind. What is fascinating though is how each industry plans to tackle these changes.
Previously, organizations, specifically traditional ones, provided customer service through face-to-face interactions, but over the past five years, this has dramatically changed.
Organizations have had to become digitally savvy and build self-care channels for equally advanced customers, as well as build up existing customer care channels to be able to compete with new age companies, especially, the e-commerce ones. The other aspect to look at is the acumen of the customer—most companies now have to cater to different customer segments and their journeys along with the expectation that its service be customized for each customer segment. And leveraging this aspect is where organizations are falling short.
For instance, one leading network provider stated that even though they have an extensive, all-inclusive self-care platform, 7–8% of their customers still reached them through their walk-in outlets. Hence, the organization has to have highly efficient agents who are well aware of all the products and services.
The expectations a customer now has with regard to the product, service, and turnaround times too have changed. Not only is the customer comfortable with using the internet, he is also comfortable using it on a mobile device; ergo organizations, to stay ahead in the game, need to think of the entire customer experience as opposed just customer service.
In order to create excellent experiences for the customer, it is important for organizations to not compartmentalize and segregate plans for the product, marketing and sales as separate entities. Integrating these are essential to provide a positive consolidated customer experience.
A key point made at the round table was the use of analytics on data collated at organizations providing insight into growth opportunities, areas of improvement and means to empower their employees. It also acts as a means to deliver consistent experience to its customers across all channels.
One of the participating companies conducted a survey which found that *38% of customers who had a good interaction experience in person or over the phone were more likely to renew products or services as compared to online interactions. This emphasizes that no matter how savvy a customer might be, the need for being heard and understood still rank high.
A recent survey suggests that only 10% of companies competing on customer experience have exceed customer expectation on a regular basis. In order to engage customers with your brand, you need to not only bring all channels of communication under a single roof but also see that these are integrated seamlessly. It calls for a holistic approach wherein an integrated system with targeted tools are in place to empower the employee and satisfy the customer—through a connected digital experience.
Cisco offers connected digital experience solutions that transform your contact centers. Enterprises want to know their customer well by analyzing previous conversations, interactions, orders, feedbacks and complaints. A digitally connected customer experience is all about leveraging customer data, understanding behavior patterns and responding right to their queries.
Cisco’s unified contact center enables engaging with your customer through any and every channel to provide consistent, connected and Contextual customer experience.
Read more on how our solutions can help you deliver the right experience!
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