Effective customer experience management has become the Holy Grail of global businesses, as analysts point to experience as the biggest business differentiator and competitive advantage an organisation can have, says Nicholas Leck, Microsoft Solutions Executive: Customer Experience Management at EOH MC Solutions.
Digitisation and personalisation of the experience are key to improving customer experience (CX), but these factors must be approached in a strategic way - there can be no one-size-fits-all model for CX excellence.
Personalisation is crucial because people are tired of the irrelevant barrage of advertising and offers they have to process. On any given day, the average customer will be exposed to 2 904 media messages, but will pay attention to 52 and will positively remember only four, according to SuperProfile 2010. The real value of personalisation lies in relevance. People appreciate brands that take the time and make the effort to understand their preferences, needs and wants. Information that is targeted to my specific interests and challenges will help the consumer become more knowledgeable, build brand loyalty and potentially also drive sales.
Customer insights is the second pillar, which relies on analytics of accessible and accurate customer data. This underpins personalisation. The technology enablers here are typically CRM, data, collaboration and analytics tools. With the technology we have today it is easy for a brand to capture the consumer's preferences and purchasing behaviour, and tailor offers and information accordingly. Today's consumer will allow brands to run algorithms and predictive models on their data if it means the outcome will be information, products and services that could enrich the consumer's life. If a brand can continually show that it is making an effort to understand the consumer's individual preferences, the consumer will be more inclined to remain loyal and recommend the brand.
As part of the overall CX push, omni-channel strategies are enjoying top of mind awareness. But before a business can implement an omni-channel strategy, it needs to embrace the value this will provide and build the strategy into a broader company-wide strategy. Digital Transformation will not grow your revenue, resolve complaints faster or improve CX unless your employees and partners are aligned with these goals.
In addition, when considering omni-channel, companies should be aware that all channels may not be necessary to enhance CX, particularly in South Africa. A crucial component, however, is mobile, especially in B2C.
User experience design would be the third pillar of your customer experience strategy. User experience is a broad discipline that is grounded in customer convenience. There is no silver bullet for customer experience, it is about understanding what journey and channels customers feel most comfortable with. People spend the majority of their free time on a mobile device. At work they tend to use more powerful tools like PCs and notebooks, but mobile devices are ubiquitous when off duty or on the road. Mobile is used increasingly for in-store price comparisons, quick customer self-service and even for app-enabled online shopping and 'window shopping'. In fact, most buying decisions are made online, with recent research indicating that buyers are, at a minimum, 57% of the way through the buying process before they contact a potential supplier. Some respondents reported being as much as 70% complete with the decision-making process before reaching out to a vendor.
Another critical component of successful CX management is customer complaints management. While social media as a whole has not yet had a critical impact on CX in South Africa, online and social media complaints management is one with the potential to make or break customer relationships. HelloPeter was the leader in customer complaints for a number of years until Facebook and Twitter gave customers a real voice. Social media has given the customer a far greater reach, making big and small brands alike sit up and take action. Most importantly it is improving customer experience. Customers who are tired of being transferred around the contact centre now have their own silver bullet for service. They end the call and open Twitter or Facebook, tag the @companyname on their phone and air their complaint to their friends and followers. Usually, this assures a faster response than if they complained in person. Technologies such as Microsoft Social Care have been around for years but now, smart businesses are using these to stem negative viral complaint outbreaks.
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