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Even in a complex, digital brand environment, customers expect a seamless customer experience (CX). People want to feel like they can find information or contact a representative without going through too many hoops. They want short wait times, helpful responses and easy navigation through whatever channel they choose to find information. The smoother the customer experience, the more positive they will feel about whatever issue or question they have.
Higher engagement and customer satisfaction is possible with a better CX, but many organizations rely on the same old practices to improve CX. Many of these strategies aren’t relevant to the modern consumer. As Interactions noted in an internal blog post, many companies have trouble using CX as a true differentiator. Here’s how your organization can change the script and create a digital experience that best engages customers.
Meet Customers Where They Are
With so many channels to connect with customers, it may be tempting to focus on everything. While omnichannel is valuable, it’s important to know which channels are the most valuable to your CX and focus on those. Do the necessary research to find out where customers go to explore your brand and look up information. From there, you can strategically invest in the right channels for your omnichannel approach. Once you do this, seamlessly integrate them so that customers have a consistent experience across channels.
Offer Flexible Communication Options to Customers
Conversational bots have a lot of value and can offer customers important answers to their questions. But there’s no totally accurate way to predict how any conversation will develop. Even if customers begin their query by asking a bot, there must also be a way for your company’s technology to gauge the flow of the conversation and move the customer to a representative when necessary. There’s no benefit to assuming you know the way a conversation will go. But there is a benefit to responding to conversational cues, and naturally giving the customer a new option to best solve their issue.
What’s also important to remember here is that once customers find the right person or channel, they don’t want to constantly be transferred to different departments. This blocks the natural flow of conversation and frustrates customers when they have to wait for yet another representative. In fact, a recent survey found that long wait times and constant transfers are two major reasons for customer dissatisfaction. By avoiding these practices, customers will have a smoother and more satisfactory experience overall.
Be Strategic About Your Technology Use
Don’t just offer tech for tech’s sake. There are a lot of new technology tools and solutions to be excited about, but investing in the shiny new object just because it’s new doesn’t guarantee results. The way to get value out of technology is to identify the problem first and then pick the best tool to address that problem – whether it’s the latest trendy tech or something tried and true.
Teams across the organization should be on the same page about these solutions as well. Stakeholders in different teams can work together to decide what existing technology investments need to be improved and where there’s room for a new technology innovation.
Understand Problems and Personalize Solutions
As much as people like free stuff and discount codes, offering them freebies indiscriminately won’t translate to the most effective CX improvements. Customers expect something personalized and relevant to what they want. Data, analytics and voice of the customer skills help organizations look at the CX experience from the customers’ point of view and understand their pain points or frustrations.
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Companies can use this data to offer customers solutions based on their interests or where they are in the buying journey. With more relevant communications, consumers will feel less bombarded with information and more positive toward the brand. For example, as HubSpot notes, companies can provide vouchers to customers after their first purchase, which may inspire them to buy something related to their first purchase. This personalized experience may make them more loyal to this brand than competitors.
Remember That the Employee Experience Is Key to CX
As much energy as you put toward customers themselves, that won’t mean as much if you’re also not considering your employee experience. Front line employees have a huge impact on CX, and happier employees can lead to happier customers. According to a recent Gartner survey, employee engagement should be one of the key ROI data points used in a CX initiative, but it’s only included in about 10% of them. Even as organizations rank employee engagement as a major concern in CX improvements, that’s not necessarily showing up in how results are measured.
With the right data collection solution, companies can discover what’s stopping their employees from delivering great CX. This can be done through pulse surveys or real-time data collection tools. Once companies uncover employees’ common pain points, they can use their insights to review and improve systematic processes to improve EX overall.
Start Improving Your CX Today
Many customers can’t see a huge difference between digital experiences among brands, according to a recent Gartner study. This means there’s a big opportunity for companies to stand out and make their CX a true differentiator. By following these steps, your organization will be on the right path to improving your CX strategy, processes and results.
Discover how Interactions can improve your CX omnichannel experience at www.interactions.com.