Creating better customer experience can be very cumbersome or very easy depending on how complicate methods, systems or ideas you want to use. Below are some ideas for you, how to improve customer experience through changing your business processes.
Put some real meaning into the term ‘customer engagement’.
Do not just say you are ‘engaging’ with customers by responding to their social media comments. Let them really talk and start using their ideas to show that you really are listening. Many organizations are having success with online idea exchanges and communities where customers can offer their ideas on improving products and services. Not only can customers submit ideas about products and services, but other customers can support those or add their own ideas to the original one. This kind of activities can replace traditional customer satisfaction surveys with much more vivid information on what customers think about you.
Focus on creating the single-customer view.
Most people already know the big customer experience challenge is creating customer files with histories and links to pertinent information. CustomerThink, an online community, recently completed a survey of U.S. consumers and found that 80% had experienced what it calls “touch point amnesia,” which refers to experience when a returning customer calls a company with a problem and is treated like they have never been heard of before. Of that 80% from the survey, 50% said they were less likely to recommend the company and between 24% and 35% were less likely to actually make a purchase because of it. So, it matters that you treat your customers as individuals.
Push social media across the organization.
Companies are at risk of not getting true benefit from social media, which is important part of customer experience strategies, because it is controlled by marketing or communications groups. You talk to any CEO and they will tell you that the focus of 2012 is to get closer to the customer, yet social media itself is already a functional silo within the organization.While marketing and communication groups own social media, service is at the bottom level and managers do not even use any of these tools. It is not enough for top management to be involved, but they have to actively participate into building the profile for the organization.
Teach employees to have conversations with customers.
I think we should already know that scripted contact center agents are bad news. I received a brochure in mail for a new cell phone offer. I actually considered switching my operator and I phoned to them. When I attempted to ask the agent a question, I was instead given a scripted sales pitch. I didn’t make the switch. There are these companies that are driven purely by metrics and scripts, because they think that the way to make customer service successful is to constantly measure the cost of it. This just is not the right way to succeed with customers. You still need the metrics, but you should not base your customer experience on the wrong kind of metrics.
Understand when your customer might feel vulnerable, because those are precisely the moments when they can turn on you.
It is important to get ahead of those vulnerable moments when a customer is nervous or second-guessing their buying decision. Here is one example from real life: following up on the sale of a Internet connection contract to make sure the customer understands what they purchased before they get the bill in the mail. Here is another example: a hospital in a small city recognized that most people’s stress level increases as they approach a hospital. So, it pipes in relaxing music to the parking lot to help people settle down before entering the hospital building.
Here are some reflective questions you can use to evaluate your customer experience:
- What customer engagement means in your organization? How could you make it more worth-while?
- Do you treat your customers as single-customers?
Do have them tell you information that you already know? - Do your managers understand the power of social media and do they actively use it for the benefit of organization?
- Do you use scripted talks to discuss with your customers?
Do you evaluate and teach your employees to have meaningful discussions with your customers? - Do you understand those key moment of truths when your customers make decisions regarding your business?
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