Editorial
The Gist
- Evolving demands. Over a third of customers will abandon brands after a single bad experience.
- Strategic focus. Enhancing CX offers a significant ROI, requiring cohesive team efforts and customer feedback.
- AI integration. Leveraging AI and automation can unify customer data, streamlining support and improving satisfaction.
Companies and suppliers don’t define good customer experience (CX). Customers decide, and are they ever a judicious group, with over a third willing to walk away from a brand they loved after one bad experience according to a PwC report.
Alternatively, if you nail the end-to-end customer experience journey, your customers will accept up to a 16% premium on products and services. How do you do that? According to a recent PwC report, for more than 80% of Americans a positive customer experience comes down to speed, convenience, knowledgeable help and friendly service.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. The good news is that, at least from a strategic and technological standpoint, the opportunity has never been better to drastically enhance frictionless customer experience, as is the chance to reap considerable ROI in a lot less time.
Frictionless Customer Experience Isn’t Important, It’s Critical
Thanks to online marketplaces like Amazon, you can order a $2,000 treadmill and return it sight unseen with just a couple of clicks. This is but one example of how customer expectations have evolved in the last few years.
As a result, people have come to expect frictionless customer experience. They expect options, too: More than 70% of consumers prefer different service channels depending on the context.
In this environment, product and feature differentiation will only get you so far. And for tech companies, the competition will catch up to your bright idea in 12-to-18 months tops. It’s what happens after the sale — the ownership experience, personalized support, proactive outreach — that becomes the differentiating factor.
No wonder 77% of businesses see the importance of increased consumer expectations for digital experiences. Their long-term survival depends on it.
What Does it Take to Create Frictionless Customer Experience?
Frictionless customer experience can be condensed to one powerful idea: Know your customer so well that you anticipate their needs before they even realize what they are. Think Netflix. Every click, every watch, every pause feeds their algorithm, creating a viewing experience tailored just for you.
Netflix is not alone, but its model embodies the core need of the modern consumer: My experience with your company should be intuitive enough that I don’t have to waste time trying to find what I need.
Here are a few common signs of friction in the customer experience:
- Generic, impersonal service interactions that make them feel like just a number.
- Difficulty getting quick and easy access to a live agent or chat support option.
- Long wait times when calling a support line, often with multiple transfers to different departments.
- Inconsistent information across different channels, leaving them confused and unsure of what to believe.
Why is this such a common problem? In many organizations, different departments or teams own different parts of the customer journey. This often leads to data silos, disconnected systems and a fragmented experience for the customer.
To rectify these issues, you can start by bringing those different teams together. Identify who owns each touchpoint in the customer journey and encourage open communication and collaboration. This might involve mapping the entire customer journey, brainstorming ways to break down those departmental silos or exploring how technologies like AI and automation can help. When teams unite around customer data, feedback and a shared goal of creating a seamless experience, the results can be truly remarkable.
Related Article: Frictionless Customer Experiences Are the Best Customer Experiences
Speaking of AI in CX…
AI in CX is already reshaping the landscape, and its impact is only going to grow. The latest McKinsey Global Survey shows that AI adoption has skyrocketed to 72%, with over two-thirds of companies across the globe now using it. But there's a catch: many organizations still treat AI as just another isolated channel instead of leveraging its full potential.
Consider this: You likely have product documentation in one place, knowledge base articles in another — all potentially relevant to a customer's issue. This is where AI, particularly generative AI, shines. It can seamlessly weave together these disparate pieces of information into a single, conversational experience that provides the best possible answer, regardless of where the source content lives.
Granted, AI-powered search might not be a magic bullet for every complex customer problem. But let's face it: a staggering 99% of organizations still struggle to deliver relevant, personalized search results. AI can bridge this gap by connecting multiple data sources and systems, ultimately creating a more unified and satisfying experience for both customers and the agents who assist them.
Related Article: AI Trends That Will Transform Customer Journey
Start Small and Build It Right
Start small with one business unit that works with a subgroup of your customers. Involve the customers in the process of improvement. As you build and iterate based on customer feedback, you’ll gain the confidence to roll out the program to other business units.
Of course, before any organization jumps on the CX bandwagon, business decision-makers need to see what’s in it for them, so start with the data.
Bridge the gap between your support and research and development (R&D) teams by building indexes that provide an objective source of information that identifies where the friction is happening and where cost optimization can be found. In doing this, your teams will have more time, resources and budget to drive innovation that can improve CX.
BCG calls this “following the friction,” one of its top recommended priorities for business leaders. Whichever route your organization decides to go — generative UI, agent-to-agent CX, or otherwise — following the friction by following the data is a sound place to start.
Outsource CX With Caution
It’s difficult enough to reduce friction with in-house CX tools. Today, 70% of companies outsource chat, 68% outsource voice, and 50% outsource email, introducing additional sources of potential friction. We get it: Outsourcing can make a lot of business sense but you don’t want customers to feel like they’re talking to two separate companies; it’s like kryptonite for good CX. So, how do you maintain frictionless customer experience while outsourcing much of the work?
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Make sure you have:
- A robust training and onboarding program.
- Tight systems integration.
- Strong resolution and behavioral data.
The Future of CX Is Now
The path to frictionless customer experience is truly a group journey. It requires a collaborative effort that leverages data, technology and most importantly, customer feedback. While AI offers powerful means for personalization and streamlining processes, its true potential lies in bridging the gaps between departments, data sources and systems.
Not long ago, we could only imagine a future where AI seamlessly integrated self-service experiences, eliminated the need for context switching, and empowered live agents with a more complete understanding of customer issues. The future is now and can only be made a reality when CX teams work together to identify and remove friction.
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