Johannesburg, 01 Aug 2018
As consumers, we've all experienced the frustration of having to explain an issue we have with a company's product or service over and over to different people. We type out our problem on social media and are told to contact the call centre. We explain the problem again to the first agent, who transfers our call to another agent, and we have to start over. Sometimes, it gets to the point where we take our business elsewhere or we take out our frustration in a scathing public review, and in an age of word-of-mouth marketing, companies should be avoiding bad reviews at all costs.
So says Arvind Parthiban, director of marketing at Freshworks, who adds that poorly timed and irrelevant customer engagement, which results in bad experiences and, therefore, bad reviews, are a result of customer information silos within businesses.
"There is no streamlined flow of information between the pre-sales team, the sales team, the marketing team, the support team and the after-sales team. Nobody knows exactly where the customer is in the sales funnel, what engagements he or she has already had and with whom, or what needs to happen next to ensure an excellent experience," says Parthiban.
According to Gartner, only 10% of companies have this 360-degree view of their customers and only 5% are using this information to grow their businesses.
For Parthiban, if a company wants to drive exceptional customer experiences and engagements, they need to get three things right: timing, context and striking a balance between automation and the human touch.
Timing
Having a 360-degree view of the customer means making the relevant information available to the relevant support person at exactly the right time, says Parthiban. This is key to delivering excellent experiences that result in glowing reviews, referrals and repeat business.
"Let's say a customer is two steps away from completing his purchase, but he has a question for the support person. If the support person knows exactly where the customer is in the sales process, she can provide better support and not waste time asking irrelevant questions or addressing non-issues."
Data silos are hampering businesses' ability to respond to customers exactly when they need help the most. Yet the reality, says Parthiban, is that customers don't care how an organisation is structured. They only care when the 'broken business model' affects their experience. And, because they're spoilt for choice, they won't think twice about taking their business to a competitor who can deliver what they need, exactly when they want it.
Context
He calls this 'contextual engagement', where everyone in the business who might engage with the customer has a complete overview of past and current interactions with the company. This could include social media posts, e-mails, chats with bots, Web forms, call centre transcripts, as well as the outcomes of all these engagements. Having all this information in front of them allows support agents to pick up exactly where the last agent left off.
"Companies need to be able to continue conversations across channels and across the entire customer life cycle. Currently, customer engagement is very disconnected, but when the support teams have a 360-degree view of the customer's history and conversations, they can provide proactive engagement and deliver 'moments of wow'. If the context is available to everyone, there's no loss of information when you need it most," says Parthiban.
Context, he says, makes for a smooth and effortless customer experience. It helps to move customers through the sales funnel faster, allowing businesses to deliver more 'moments of wow' to more customers, which has a direct positive impact on the bottom line.
AI and humans: striking a balance
Chatbots have brought a new touch-point to the customer engagement mix, says Parthiban. While it's possible to automate every stage of the customer experience, he advises that businesses strike a balance between automation and human interaction.
"Too much AI will result in a lack of human interaction and a potentially bad experience. Sometimes, we just want to speak to a real person when we have a problem. On the other hand, too much human interaction can hinder the efficiency, scale and cost reductions offered by automation."
Again, it comes down to understanding exactly where the customer is in the customer journey, what interactions he's already had, and how companies can proactively move them along.
"If I've had a bad experience with a chatbot, the last thing I want is to speak to another bot. But if I'm not actively looking for support and am just browsing the Web site, the last thing I want is to be called by a human. Yet a bot making subtle suggestions of products I might be interested in could be just the nudge I need to make a purchase."
Data is the new oil
Companies are losing out on a competitive edge if they don't leverage the information they have about their customers, says Parthiban. Customer engagement is the new age marketing, but they're missing a trick if they're not able to proactively engage with customers at exactly the right time, for exactly the right reason.
They should start by integrating data silos to make way for a seamless flow of customer information from the very first time a customer engages with the company to the moment a deal is closed.
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