We as consumers are ‘always on’. We’re constantly mobile and such we expect our requests and demands to be met immediately. Because we’re all demanding a much better service, customer experience is truly playing at the front and centre across all walks of our lives.
This in itself has created a range of challenges for businesses that lack the agility to deal with a rapidly shifting landscape.
In turn, it’s created what I describe as the ‘five moments of truth’ that outline pain points throughout the customer journey.
- Authentication – 50% of people have told us when you make contact either through the phone, or online, the process of proving your identity is cumbersome.
- Institutional memory – there is nothing more frustrating for a customer than having to re-explain an issue or complaint. However we found two thirds (66%) of people have experienced this at some point.
- Channel shift – our research found 57% of people have initiated a transaction using self-servicing, but are then forced to switch to voice.
- Too many transfers – 60% of people said they have been transferred to another agent during a support session.
- First call resolution – this is a goal all customer service teams strive to reach. However, 62% of respondents said they had to come back to try and resolve the same issue, suggesting that agents haven’t got the tools or insight they need to deliver service effectively. (Stats sourced from the CEB)
So how can organisations tackle these growing problems?
A seamless customer journey
First off, the customer journey needs to be joined up across multiple channels – the web, email, chat, social and voice.
People are channel agnostic – they don’t care where they get the information from as long as it as easy and convenient for them. So, in order to create an effective omni-channel experience, businesses have to stitch together the online with the offline into one smooth and consistent journey for the customer.
In order to do this, organisations need to arm their customer service teams with the right tools to deliver this enhanced journey.
Truly understand your customer
One area that is really going to drive this over the next two to three years is the use of data analytics – something that has been subject of much discussion recently.
With innovative businesses now getting their head around Big Data we see them making the most out of real-time information on where the customer is in their journey.
For example, if a customer has just abandoned a voice call then perhaps the next email correspondence from them should be given a higher priority?
This also offers opportunities to improve the consumer’s online experience, where self-service has a significant contribution to make in call avoidance. If a customer is on your website then by initiating a web chat session you can manage the customer’s experience in real time.
Analytics can be used to connect how customers are behaving, what’s working, and what’s not (of the top five moments of truth, four are key drivers of customer effort). And by giving agents the right tools to do the job, it completely enhances the whole experience for the customer.
Technology has completely disrupted how customers interact with businesses, and a as a result those who do not rise to the challenge of the ‘five moments of truth’ run the risk of losing ground to rivals. However by creating an analytics driven omni-channel service model, organisations will be well equipped to deal with the ever-evolving demands of the consumer.
We will be demonstrating Cisco’s Connected Analytics for Contact Centre at Customer Contact Expo 2015 Why not come and meet us at Stand E10 where we will be joined by contact centre technology experts from Cisco partners including BT, Dimension Data, eGain, PC1 and Vodafone.You can register for the event here.
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