Category: Customer Experience

Customer experience has always been a complex topic because of technology’s accelerated growth. The myriad of channels through which your business can serve the query of a grievous customer has evolved beyond the simple phone call into an interwoven network of phone call centers, social media management, chatting and emailing. The customer is now used to prompt and quick response times, the result of which most large companies need to continually monitor their customer channels. Your business must continue to improve customer experience if it wants to survive – one could argue that it is the cornerstone of your company’s success. The only way to spearhead it towards newer heights is by keeping up with the ever-changing customer experience trends.

Top 10 Customer Experience Management Trends to Watch out for:

1. Personalized shopping trends by using data analytics

You are expected to know the tastes, likes and dislikes of each and every single one of your customers, whether they number in the millions or if they can be counted on your fingertips. Today’s shopping experience is heavily personalized, driven by data analytics which is powered by supercomputers operating in the cloud. Companies that understand the importance of personalization are now seeking more and more of the customer’s data so they can curate the product better around your tastes.

Successful companies such as Netflix and Uber are so good with data analytics that they can make accurate predictions for what their customer would want next in the future – and when that future comes, they’re more than prepared to handle their requests. Despite the importance of data analytics in the personalization of the customer’s overall shopping experience, 80% of companies don’t know their customer beyond the basic information such as purchase history and frequency of their purchase.

2. The low effort in purchases

Time is money as they say and today’s customer is more about saving time than money. They want their purchase to be over as soon as possible. Standing in long queues and then waiting for the clerk to pack up your goods is a relic of the past decade. Consumers don’t want more decisions and spend the time to decide what to buy. Gone if the generation of curious online consumers doing extensive research and deciding the best option after days of digging through websites, consumers want to know the right choice now.

3. Purchases of the phone

Yes – your business needs to have an app if it wants a wider reach. Almost everyone (unless they’re living under a rock) owns a smartphone with access to the internet these days. In fact, most people are now making 51% of their purchases online using their phones! Australian shoppers are becoming more tech-savvy and more than 84% of the population is now using smartphones. The phone has now more power than the TV, you could even say it is the ‘colour TV’ of our generation.

4. Targeting the millennials

Millennials are now increasingly critical of your business than ever before. They make efforts to research your product over the internet before making an informed decision, something that the older generation doesn’t tend to do very often. In fact, 40% of millennials conduct their research online. Targeting this ambitious group of young people requires the use of catchy slogans and turning your business into a brand more than anything else.

5. Catering to emotions

Emotion is now becoming a strong component of the overall customer experience. Think of the PS4 and Xbox One fanboys – how they rage at each other on the internet on forums discussing how their brand is the superior one. That’s emotion at play here.

6. Let the metrics do the talking

Collecting key customer metrics such as customer satisfaction, customer profitability and click through rate should lend you a better understanding of the kind of product which will net you the best results.

7. Integrating with other businesses

Partnering up with other businesses to provide a more streamlined shopping experience to the customer has been an evolving trend. Credit card companies such as MasterCard and Visa are a prime example of this. Their promo campaigns give you voucher cards for discounts if you go to a certain restaurant and use their credit card for making the purchase.

8. Avoid challenging the cognitive resources too much

While giving the customers a wide range of choice is considered to be good business as it allows them greater control over their purchases, it has also been shown that too many of many choices, especially ones with similar characteristics, labeling one product ‘brown’ and another ‘hazelnut’ can place a psychological burden on the customer. Successful businesses are learning to avoid this practice.

9. Augmented reality

Businesses are now looking to gain their customer’s confidence by installing augmented reality images next to their product to give them a more in-depth review of what they’re buying into.

10. Train your staff and agents

Your agents are the ones that engage with the customer on a regular basis, training them on best practices and identifying where their successes and failures lie can be the difference between your support staff being your Achilles heel or a valued service. This is especially true for agents that deal with customer support channels.

Better Customer Experience = More Business

The management of blended channels can sometimes become the Achilles’ heel for many businesses. Instead of providing them with good returns, bad management of blended channels will result in soured customer service and experience. It has been estimated that bad customer experience is costing $120 Billion dollars to Australian businesses each year. This staggering figure clearly suggests how important is to devise strategies for better customer experience. With more people using different social media platforms, businesses can’t provide optimal customer experience only through contact centers. To highlight,  7 in 10 Australians use Facebook and approximately half of the Australian population daily logs onto Facebook, how many businesses do you know respond to their customer service channels through FaceBook?

Here are some of the consequences of Ineffective Management of Blended Channels

Unfamiliarity with Technology: Ineffective usage of blended channels + bad reputation of the business

Answering customer queries through inbound calling is fine but if your customer support agent is not familiar and efficient with the use of other interactive platforms (SMS, online chat, Twitter, Facebook), then your approach of blended channels can’t convert in better ROI. Generation Y is very agile and they are always in a hurry. Hence, they won’t like it when their queries are not answered quickly. Not only will they dump your services, but they will also only propagate the bad reputation of your business.

And it doesn’t stop just with bad mouthing. The same online tools which you have incorporated in your business will be used against you. They probably leave comment or review about their experience with you on social media platforms. A study suggests that more than 80% of people are influenced by online reviews when they reach any business through blended channels.

Related:
Why is Multi-Channel Customer Service Important?

Counter-Productivity of Multitasking Means Leads Won’t Convert

There are many caveats attached to the concept of multitasking. A school of thought believes that it is a good strategy for increased productivity while others think it is counterproductive.

Agents, when operating blended channels, are basically doing multitasking and there is a simple problem associated with that. Not every person is able to handle the challenge of multitasking demanded from the blended channel approach. Therefore, if you have huddled a team without assessing their multitasking capabilities, then there are strong chances that it will backfire.

People who fail to multitask can’t simultaneously concentrate on every interaction they are making on blended channels. Failing to provide 100% to every customer interaction means there will be less display of persuasion and convincing. We all know that with little persuasion you can’t successfully convert leads into customers.

Inefficient Management of Blended Calls and Increased Employee Turnover

Assigning agents that are not familiar with newer online platforms or who are not good at multitasking to the operations of blended channels also becomes problematic for your own employees.

With more workload and failing to manage multiple channels, their stress levels can shoot up. Apart from that, failure in converting leads and satisfying customers can also lead to frustration. Working under constant pressure can make many of your employees switch. Greater turnover rates are not good for the consistent performance of any business.

Unrelenting Mismanagement and Profit

If a business doesn’t mend its ways in managing the blended channels effectively, then the worst possible outcome will be decreased profits. With bad reputation, a business will have less lead generation, and with bad customer support even the loyal customers start to call it a day. The failure to acquire new customers and the inability to retain existing ones only means one thing: a significant dip in revenue.

It is an undisputed fact that devising multi-prong blended channels strategy is good for businesses but managing it effectively is the key to reap its benefits. If you are looking for better ways to improve customer engagement and offer better customer experience, get in touch.

For any business to succeed in their niche industry, it’s essential to have a well-defined customer experience strategy – one that creates distinctive value for targeted customers. The creation of a definitive strategy in order to improve the consumer’s experience allows corporations to bring innovation and instill energy into the company’s growth. In the modern digitized era of today, there’s a greater focus on digital customer service capabilities. According to research, it has been found that corporations that invest their time, energy and effort into creating a much-needed balance in the customer services journey by addressing all the possible needs and requirements of a consumer, reap staggering amounts of benefits.

Request a FREE Woveon Conversational Software demo today.

Here are the 7 Ways to Create a Customer Experience Strategy

Apart from the basic benefits such as increased customer satisfaction, increased revenue, decreased consumer backlash, organizations that skilfully mediate the customer services experience for consumers to provide a well-rounded transaction are also able to gain improved employee gratification such that it leads to improved company outcomes overall.

1. Create Intelligent Customer Engagement

While human interaction provides that empathetic factor in between customer-representative relationship – the fact remains that humans can only do so much. Strike the perfect balance by allowing Woveon to simplify customer services for your customers as well as employees. Woveon is a multi-faceted platform that combines the various elements of customer services under one umbrella so that neither the consumers nor the employees have to reach too far for valid solutions to customer problems.

2. Improve Customer Service Accessibility

One of the biggest reasons that organisations feel high levels of consumer churn is because the customers have to navigate a labyrinth of customer service representatives before they reach the individual actually responsible for providing a viable solution to their problem. By using Woveon, organizations eliminate the detours and hurdles to create a quick and easy pathway directly to the concerned personnel. Through Woveon, customers have the choice to communicate with the CS representative through multiple platforms such as in person, via phone, email or quick-chats – allowing them to choose one which suits them best.

3. Enhance Speed and Efficiency

Often times, the customer is left disappointed with the customer services because the representatives are unable to either address their present concerns or correlate with their past issues. Woveon eliminates this issue by allowing organizations to perfect their digital services to the point where they have instant access to all consumer details in one place at one glance.

4. Construct a Well-Rounded Management System

Customer service complaints arise most often when organizations are unable to address all the concerns and complaints of a consumer. Woveon simplifies that by having Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence programs in place, which collect and utilize essential consumer data to predict complaints, provide assessments and suggest simple responses in an efficient manner. By constructing a well-rounded management system, it takes the pressure off the customer services representative, allowing them to better address the consumer and their concerns.

5. Identify Consumers Priority

In the midst of an onslaught of complaints, concerns and requests by a large number of consumers, sometimes customers can get lost and buried under the masses. Woveon, based on the previous data collected, allows organizations to distinguish between the consumers on a priority basis such that no customer is left unattended.

6. Instill Flexibility

Customer churn is at its peak when consumers are provided with generic answers in response to their individualized queries. Organizations that place individual importance on each consumer by keeping a track of their specifications and personal requirements achieve far greater customer excellence and satisfaction than those who don’t. With Woveon, organizations can successfully instill flexibility in their customer strategy such that each representative is able to address the specific customer problems pertaining to their unique circumstance.

7. Sell Knowledgeably

Last but not least, one of the most essential ways to create a customer experience strategy is to have a customer services team that is knowledgeable, educated and aware. Vague responses such as ‘company policy’ or other generic replies only help in ensuring that the customer never returns to engage with the corporation again. If the customer services representative can make personalised suggestions and recommendations of newer services or products to address the consumer problems, it successfully depicts a more helpful and concerned service. Moreover, it ultimately provides increased value to the consumer-representative relationship, thus allowing for the achievement of improved results.

The level of security provided to the sensitive information of a business or an individual determines their privacy. With the digital age progressing fast with every passing second, the concerns on the privacy of data are mounting as well. Whenever and wherever the data is provided, collected, and stored, there is a high risk of its being misused, lost, or being accessed by unauthorized people when left unprotected.

Therefore, the Privacy Act 1988 was set in place to make the entities take essential steps for the protection of customer’s data and prevent it from being misused in any way. Moreover, this step ensured that the concerned authorities collecting the data would either destroy or at least de-identify the customer’s data once it is not needed anymore.

While the Privacy Act is subjected to a number of organizations, credit providers, agencies, and credit reporting bodies, the entities that do not come under this, should try to follow these rules as well. This will ensure improved security of the personal information of their customers.

Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) Guide

The Australian government has also released a guide that will help the organization secure private information in the best way possible. This guide is not legally binding. However, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) refers to it whenever it is undertaking any Privacy Act functions. Further information on the regulatory powers that are to be exercised can be found in the Privacy Regulatory Action Policy.

The data of customers are subjected to easy attack from the criminals of the cyber world in several ways. Thanks to the ambiguous nature that a connected world offers, the security concerns have increased tremendously. Mobile networks, BYOD, bringing your own devices in public areas, and IP addresses set to public setting provide environments that are unprotected and are not the best way to access sensitive data.  

While the consumers are concerned that their data might be stolen, the government identities and businesses are always on the lookout for protection against malicious cyber attacks on a number of fronts, including even their own organizations.

Related: 
Customer Service: Its Importance and Value

Here are the Components of a Customer’s Data that needs Protection

This means that there is a great need to understand which type of customer’s data needs to be protected on a priority basis.

In order to make it easier for you to identify the data that should be protected, we have compiled a list of components of customers’ data that should be protected:

1. Biometric Information: This is used for identifying an individual on the basis of one of their distinguishing biological trait. Such traits include fingerprints, iris and retina patterns, signatures, and DNA. This information comes under the personal identification type and can create many issues if it reaches the wrong person.  
2. License Number: Personally identifiable information is the licensee number since it is unique and can easily be traced to that individual.
3. Medical Information: Another important type of data that needs protection is an individual’s medical information. It can allow a criminal to commit identity theft.
4. Date of Birth: Perhaps no other information requires a higher level of protection than an individual’s date of birth as it is the most commonly asked question when checking anything for security purposes.
5. Employee ID: In the wrong hands, an employee ID can create a lot of problems for the person. If the data becomes insecure the thief can use the information for stealing other more important types of data.
6. Social Security Numbers such as Citizen Visa code: Stealing someone’s citizen visa code is the most common form of robbery. This allows the culprits to steal IDs and conduct illegal activities through it.
7. Patents: These allow a person to have legal ownership of their product.
8. Copyright: Anything that is copyrighted for an individual should be properly protected. Theft in this case means that you would be losing your intellectual property.
9. Industrial Designs: A company’s industrial design should also be well protected as well since they are responsible for giving them an economic advantage over other competitive businesses.
10. Trademark: What is more unfortunate than losing your original trademark? The logo of a company is their identification mark and losing it means losing a lot of clientele as well.
11. Data on new business Ideas
12. Passwords for forums where the customers market their businesses such as social media
13. Legal Documents numbers
14. Credit Cards: These should be protected for the safeguard of your hard earned money
15. ACH Numbers needs protection as well
16. Bank Account Information
17. Loan Information
18. Payroll Information: This can lead to financial losses
19. Non-salary Information (expenses, fringe benefits, pension, etc.)
20. Investment Information (Stock, 401K, Trade, etc.)
21. Any of the unique identification system that is created by the customer

Customer experience has evolved unconditionally and exponentially within the last decade, and it’s expected to continually evolve in the coming years to a point where we might not even recognize what it looks like today.

The Essence of Customer Experience Management

Customer experience or CX could clinically be described as the product of the basic interaction between one organization and its consumer over the course of time. However, customer experience and by that connection, customer experience management is so much more than that today.

It’s the personalization of a fast, economical and interactive communication between an organization and every single one of its consumers. It’s the simplicity and ease of navigation, the awareness and advocacy of brand, it’s the integration of the purchase experience with the provided support and most importantly, it is the cultivation of the business relationship to result in a loyal and long-standing consumer.

Here are some handy tips for the busy CIO

1. Use of Established Technologies and Metrics

Customer experience management reduces down to only half the battle when there are established technologies and analyzing metrics in play. For CIOs to ease the management experience, not only should they weigh in and establish the pros and the cons of a customer experience strategy in order to separate the positive possibilities from the negative, but they should also utilize a dedicated CEM platform, personalization technologies, and management tools from the get-go to facilitate the processes.

2. Bridging the Online/Offline Chasm

The technology driven CIO’s that are focused on running and managing the IT aspect of customer experience management strategy often fail to take into account the human aspect of customer experience. For successful management therein needs to be the creation of a seamless balance between the online and offline management.

While people are naturally inclined toward the digital involvement of customer service, CIOs should ensure that the digitized support is directing the online traffic into offline traffic by encouraging them to physically engage with the brand.

This brings us to the next point.

3. Create Collaborative Support

Collaborative support is exactly what it sounds like. No one tech executive can be expected to handle the onslaught of customer experience management concerns on their own without the input of external representative. Not only does this hold true for the collaboration necessary between the online and offline elements, but it’s also equally as important for other organizations aspects as well.

By bringing other technicians and experienced individuals on board or by delegating the menial tasks to one of the lower tier advisors, the higher-ups can focus on the more critical problems faced by the company – in every regard – customer experience management related or otherwise.

There’s also another added benefit to creating collaborative support – apart from maintaining the CIOs sanity – and that is saving money.

4. Communication Consistency

Often times, it’s the smallest of inconsistencies which can cause the biggest downfall of an organization. A majority of the time CIO’s overlook the importance of creating a seamless consistency between the consumer and its communicative approach to the parent organization. The connective modalities are unstructured or lack fluency creates a further divide between the two making the jobs of the employees considerably difficult – at every level.

CIOs should ensure that the consumer is able to easily access the required assistance across all channels by the provision of the option of quick movements between the smart customer service solutions. This includes being able to jump from phone calls, to text or chat messages, all the way to emails or social media interactions – along with automated technology and support that enables for efficient, effective responses and thus a fluent customer service experience.