Editorial
The Gist
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Repetition hurts experience. When customer information doesn’t carry across channels, people end up repeating themselves, which wastes time and increases frustration.
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Personalization saves time. Well-executed personalization reduces average handle times and effort and creates faster, more efficient customer interactions.
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Disconnected systems fail. Data silos between departments prevent brands from delivering the seamless experiences customers expect.
Customers have never uttered phrases like, “I want to wait on hold longer,” or “It would be nice if I had to keep reintroducing myself to multiple customer service representatives to resolve my issue.”
Customers want to put forth as little effort as possible when working with a brand. They want answers, not obstacles. To deliver the experience they expect, brands must focus on increasing customer efficiency. They must reduce friction and make interactions faster and more effective.
One of the best ways to increase speed while reducing effort is to focus on personalization. Typically, we view personalization as a loyalty driver, a way to connect with customers and make them feel known and valued. That’s true, but it’s also a powerful tool that helps both the customer and the business work more efficiently.
Here’s why personalization is critical to delivering the speedy, low-effort experiences customers expect and how brands can achieve personalization at scale.
Table of Contents
- Why Personalization Is a Time-Saver
- The Impact of Disconnected Systems
- Where Most Personalization Efforts Fail
- Using Customer Journey Orchestration to Connect Channels
Why Personalization Is a Time-Saver
In the movie, “Finding Nemo,” there’s a character named Dory who suffers from short-term memory loss. No matter how many times she meets someone, it’s like she’s meeting them for the first time. Too often, customers have the same experience with brands that should know them.
These experiences often happen in obvious ways, like when a customer verifies her identity with a chatbot, only to repeat the process when she connects with a live agent, and then again when she’s transferred to another agent. But it also shows up in more subtle ways, like when a customer has already shared his preferences with a brand and the brand continues to send him emails with irrelevant content.
It feels like these brands have no idea who their customers are, and that’s incredibly inefficient for everyone involved in the interaction. Just imagine how much lower average handle times become when customer information stays intact and passes cleanly between channels. Eliminating the need for reintroduction saves precious seconds and minutes for the contact center. More importantly, it reduces friction for the customer.
The correlation between this level of personalization and efficiency is obvious, and frankly, at this point, it should already be the norm. To truly make efficiency gains, brands need to anticipate customers’ needs and personalize their experiences based on what is likely to happen next.
For example, picture this. I’m racing to the airport after a last-minute gate change. Before I even reach the terminal, my airline has already texted me about the delay. When I call to rebook, the agent knows exactly who I am and why I’m calling. There’s no wasted time and no re-explaining. That’s a truly effortless experience.
Related Article: Mastering Personalized Customer Experience for Growth
The Impact of Disconnected Systems
Brands need to recognize that every channel a customer touches is a customer service channel. It doesn’t matter if the contact center owns the channel or not. If a customer engages with it, then it’s a customer service channel, and it needs to be personalized and connected.
Often, that’s not happening because of silos within a business’s operating structure and technology systems. (I’ve long held that silos sink customer satisfaction.)
When a customer makes a purchase, the information gathered by the sales department should be accessible to the service department. But, in many cases, because the sales department’s CRM isn’t integrated with the customer service department’s CCaaS platform, relevant information isn’t shared.
From a customer’s perspective, it’s baffling. If they made a purchase yesterday, they expect to be recognized today. But if the contact center is disconnected from back and mid-office operations like order fulfillment, the problems persist because the business lacks the information to know the customer during every interaction.
Where Most Personalization Efforts Fail
According to a McKinsey survey, 71% of customers expect brands to deliver personalized experiences, and 76% report frustration when a brand or business doesn’t give them a personalized experience.
Customers know that brands collect an extraordinary amount of information about them, and they want that data to be used responsibly and in ways that benefit them. How can organizations do that?
Related Article: Building a Customer Data Strategy: Key Trends
Using Customer Journey Orchestration to Connect Channels
Many customer journey orchestration consultants or platforms focus primarily on marketing and sales. That’s an incomplete view of the customer. The customer journey doesn’t end with a purchase. It’s essential for brands to unify the journey across marketing, sales and service.
Remember when I said that every channel a customer touches is a customer service channel? A strong customer journey orchestration strategy collects and analyzes data from all those touchpoints. It’s a true 360-degree view.
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With that complete view, brands can more accurately visualize current customer journeys, identify friction points and design better ones. They can implement solutions that connect technologies and data to allow seamless experiences across all their channels.
Done right, customer journey orchestration eliminates the “Dory effect.” It allows the kind of personalization that leads to higher efficiency, faster service, and better outcomes for both your customers and your business.
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