Being the older of 2 brothers, I feel as though my 3-year younger brother got off lightly when we were growing up – I am sure he feels differently, but as I am penning this article, my bias wins! Simple things like bedtime and curfews – I am sure he was able to stay up later than I did or stay out longer when he was younger. And pocket money, my parents wanted to be fair, so we received the same amount each week – even though I was 3 years older and clearly deserved more money as had bigger expenses! These were possible for my brother as I had set the precedent. I am not saying that I was a trail blazer in my teens, but I certainly made the in-roads [and sometimes mistakes] which he then benefited from.
So how does this common story of growing up relate to Customer Experience? Many CX experts believe that the Telecommunications sector were the earlier adopters in CX (the elder brother) and that other sectors, including Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare and Travel are learning from the early adopters (the younger brother) and all are working with a common goal of making the customer (my parents) happy!
You already know the importance of Customer Experience and here are 5 lessons that can be learnt from the early adopters of Customer Experience:
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Census not Sample
- When understanding the customer experience your organisation delivers, open up your Voice of Customer program to as many customers as possible. This increase in volume will give you statistically valid CX data at every entity within your business, making taking action quicker and simpler.
- When understanding the customer experience your organisation delivers, open up your Voice of Customer program to as many customers as possible. This increase in volume will give you statistically valid CX data at every entity within your business, making taking action quicker and simpler.
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The move to real time
- Annual or quarterly insights readouts should be a thing of the past. With transactional VOC programs insights can be identified in real or near real time. Many VOC programs I work on have post transaction surveys sent to customers within minutes of the interaction and insights identified intra-day. Linking
Interaction Analytics, insights can now be identified within the customer interaction itself, so the move to real time insights is here.
- Annual or quarterly insights readouts should be a thing of the past. With transactional VOC programs insights can be identified in real or near real time. Many VOC programs I work on have post transaction surveys sent to customers within minutes of the interaction and insights identified intra-day. Linking
Interaction Analytics, insights can now be identified within the customer interaction itself, so the move to real time insights is here.
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Customer Experience Analytics
- Let Customer Experience Analytics do the heavy lifting as we enter the realm of big data. With hundreds or thousands of concurrent conversations between your organisation and the customer, either face to face, on the phone or over the internet, how can your organisation derive meaning without robust analytics? Too many organisations have a VOC program that just ‘scores’ the interaction without any qualitative understanding, or captures the qualitative but has no means of understanding it (eg IVR feedback solutions without speech analytics). In 2016, this is easily addressed.
- Let Customer Experience Analytics do the heavy lifting as we enter the realm of big data. With hundreds or thousands of concurrent conversations between your organisation and the customer, either face to face, on the phone or over the internet, how can your organisation derive meaning without robust analytics? Too many organisations have a VOC program that just ‘scores’ the interaction without any qualitative understanding, or captures the qualitative but has no means of understanding it (eg IVR feedback solutions without speech analytics). In 2016, this is easily addressed.
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Closing the Loop
- When things go wrong, close the loop with the customer. This recovery activity will drive customer retention as, in the main, customers will be surprised and pleased that someone has listened to their feedback and acted up on it. This closed loop process should be performed quickly after receiving the feedback, so you should have automated processes to help you with the routing of alerts to the right person to help speed up the process.
- When things go wrong, close the loop with the customer. This recovery activity will drive customer retention as, in the main, customers will be surprised and pleased that someone has listened to their feedback and acted up on it. This closed loop process should be performed quickly after receiving the feedback, so you should have automated processes to help you with the routing of alerts to the right person to help speed up the process.
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Align the entire organisation
- Aligning the entire organisation behind the customer will give everyone a sense of ownership of the Customer Experience. In my 10+ years working in Customer Experience, the organisations that have been through the biggest cultural and transformational changes in Customer Experience have been those that have adopted the importance of the customer from the top and distilled accountability throughout the business.
- Aligning the entire organisation behind the customer will give everyone a sense of ownership of the Customer Experience. In my 10+ years working in Customer Experience, the organisations that have been through the biggest cultural and transformational changes in Customer Experience have been those that have adopted the importance of the customer from the top and distilled accountability throughout the business.
You have the benefits that an older sibling has carved a path that you can emulate or learn from or at least call on for backup as they have made some of the mistakes you can avoid.
All successful relationships take patience, understanding and devotion. Your relationship with your customers and the experience you provide is no different. Show them that you only have eyes for them and they’ll grow to love your brand. NICE Systems can help you become a good listener with our unique suite of Customer Journey Solutions. So you can learn, interact and start your own beautiful relationships. Create your customer love stories today.
Lee Mostari works for NICE Customer Experience Analytics Solutions as the lead for the Customer Success Business Consulting division. Lee’s role is to deliver CX consulting engagements with many brands from the Telco, Retail Bank, Insurance and High Street Retail sectors delivering truly transformational initiatives.