Demystify your customer's expectations and learn which 5 CX essentials that they value the most.
By now, it’s unlikely that you’ve not heard about the value of strong customer experience management. Offering frictionless customer journeys has been a sustained focus point across sectors for years and research universally shows that well managed journeys generate significant returns on any investment. In fact, McKinsey estimate that CX leaders exceed the gross margins of competitors by 26%.
The problem is that, even if you are sold on the potentials of CX, working out where to start can be a challenge. After all, what defines a good customer experience? And what is the barometer for it?
Businesses and customers invariably approach the same interaction with different perspectives and goals. But with 60% of customers having switched away from a least one provider due to a poor experience, businesses today need to adopt their customers perspective. In this blog post, we point you in the right direction and highlight the 5 CX essentials your customers value most.
1. Convenience
In recent years, disruptors like Amazon and Apple have transformed the customer experience landscape, and their influence has not been restricted to just the Retail sector. Customers have become accustomed to interacting with organisations at a time and in a manner that suits them, and if Retailers deliver, then the perception is that surely Banks, Telcos, Insurers and Utilities companies can too.
Offering convenience to customers means allowing them to set the terms of their own journey. 60% of customers now use multiple channels as part of a single transaction, and so it’s up to organisations to eliminate channel silos and deliver seamless omni-channel experiences.
It’s no longer simply about the product or service you offer, or indeed the price you offer it at, the demand for 24/7 service in their preferred channel is playing an increasingly important role in how your customers evaluate you. A failure to offer this convenience to customers will encourage them to seek out rivals that are better able to meet them on their own terms.
2. Speed and efficiency
Both speed and efficiency are equally important in the customer journey. It is true that customers want fast service, but it is also vital that their query is resolved first time. Organisations should therefore be quick to respond, and once you are interacting with the customer, a prompt and effective resolution should be delivered. A failure to do so results in costly repeat calls, with customer satisfaction dropping 15% for every call regarding the same issue.
In certain channels, delivering a fast and efficient service is a challenge. Telephony for example is traditionally marked by breaks, like postage delays or delivering compliance scripts, that lengthen the customer journey. However, the good news for organisations is that technological tools like vScreen can be leveraged to enhance the experience and enable customer service staff to deliver a fast and efficient service.
3. Being cared for
In the case of high value or emotional customer journeys, customers never want to feel like a number in a queue. They want to feel that you value them, understand their concerns and requirements, and care about the service they receive.
While a transaction might simply represent a sale for a business, it could be a momentous moment in your customers life. Take the examples of a mortgage or a pension. The decision they make will have long-term implications on their future, and as a result they want to feel they have a relationship with the advisor, and trust that the advice they are receiving is the best course of action for them in their circumstances.
4. Do what you say you’re going to do
This should be a stonewall of customer service. It might seem obvious to say that the product or service you offer must work as the customer expects and must be delivered when promised. But all too often, established brands are failing to live up to this basic demand. In fact, the July 2017 UKCSI report showed that 31.5% of customers complained about the quality or reliability of goods/ services and 25.1% about late delivery or slow service.
Delivering on promises also extends to the behaviour of front line staff. The Institute for Customer Service found customers ranked ‘staff doing what they say they will do’ second out of 47 different priorities. It’s therefore vital that staff meet the commitments they make, for example, calling a customer back if they say they are going to.
5. Transparency
Like any salesman will tell you, over-promising will only cause you problems down the line. It’s therefore important that you don’t allow poor communication to create inflated or even false expectations of you, and customers have a clear idea of what to expect after a transaction is concluded.
Too often, a siloed approached can mean agents in different departments are not always singing from the same hymn sheet. A customer may be told incorrect or conflicting information from different agents, causing confusion and even frustration when their expectations are not met. Businesses need to address siloes across touchpoints. Whilst individual touchpoints can operate smoothly, a lack of cohesion across the end-to-end journey can result in problems for the customer.
The bottom line
Looking forward, it may be your service and not your product or price that dictates whether your customers will stay with you in the long term. By giving customers what they want, when they want and in a way they want it, you are much more likely to generate that oh so elusive loyalty that will determine the success of your business.
Though this might sound like a big undertaking, technology can be used to enable you to deliver this service and streamline your operations. Download this complimentary white paper to find out how technology can be brought forward into the call centre environment and make customers feel valued.
