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Customer experience

REPORT DOWNLOAD: Future proofing CX – How can organisations drive transformation effectively?

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After surveying 360 senior leaders in Customer Experience (CX) as part of their research with Netcall, Davies are delighted to be able to share with you the findings in their new research report.

Find out what CX leaders from financial services, NHS and local government have to say on what is driving, and blocking them, from developing effective CX – and how they are navigating the current accelerated pace of change.

Download Davies’ free report to find out more about:

  • The critical issues obstructing organisations in creating memorable CX, such as complex legacy systems and lack of technical expertise
  • Omnichannel and why 99% of organisations want to be it, but only 26% believe they already are
  • Sustainable CX design and how 62% of organisations said they need to be able to rapidly adapt to keep ahead of CX expectations

Click here to download

Personalisation should be harnessed for better customer communication in 2022

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Paul Adams, Senior Director at cloud communications platform Twilio, has shared his 2022 predictions, drawing on observations in consumer behaviour and customer engagement over the pandemic…

  1. The increased use of first-party data to understand customers from small businesses

“Historically, Netflix and Amazon have dominated the practice of personalisation by making use of first party data, but this will be increasingly used by a wider array of businesses too. The emergence of customer data platforms has made it easier for businesses to harness this data, enabling them to replicate these same levels of personalisation for themselves. Customers now expect this personalised experience, and as more companies begin to rethink their approach to customer experience and update their communication methods, we’ll see a levelling out across businesses of all sizes.

All businesses are going to need to understand all their customer touch points, journeys and profile to the same extent in the long run. Otherwise, consumers’ relationships with your business will be generic, not personalised, and ultimately the consumer will gravitate towards the competition.  So regardless of whether you’re a broadband provider, a grocery retailer, or a holiday booking company, you’ve got to prove that the way you’re engaging with customers and the experience you’re delivering is the best.”

2. The mass digital transformation of small businesses in the B2C market 

“Digital transformation was at the forefront of business conversations before the pandemic, but the sudden need to convert businesses to a digital model overnight significantly sped up the process — by as much as 6 years for many. Businesses are now coming to the end of their natural tech refresh cycles and are accepting that digital transformation is imperative for survival in the market. While large businesses are more likely to have made this jump already, smaller organisations, which have tighter resources and more restrictive budgets by nature, have been slower to make the transition. Many small businesses simply didn’t have the resources to completely remodel during the pandemic, so instead focused on making smaller adjustments for survival. Now, these SMBs, which account  for around 99.2% of businesses in the UK, will be the ones leading this technology innovation and investing in digital transformation for the longer-term. As a result, the level of digital innovation we see from SMBs will be on a level akin to that seen from entrepreneurs in the 1980s.

“Beyond that you’re going to see a lot of industries adopting technology to support better customer engagement. We’re already seeing this in the UK’s mature market, with industries like healthcare, utilities, even buying and selling cars, increasingly moving to a more digital model. Ultimately, their product hasn’t changed but the way they interact with consumers has evolved with apps, chat bots, SMS and WhatsApp for reminders, conversations and alerts. Big brands like Uber and AirBnB have mastered this technique, and innovative start-ups are integrating these lessons into their business models. However, the SMBs that got through the pandemic with limited and underdeveloped digital migrations will now be adjusting their models and their communication methods to meet this expectation.  We’re going to see some very fast-growing companies in this space, as a pressure to differentiate mounts and the ones who engage well, with a great digital service, will be the one to own the transaction.

3. Hybrid lifestyles will be consolidated in the next year, and we expect to see an increased reliance on digital communications for older demographics remote over 30s. 

“The move from pandemic to endemic is an important shift and will have a notable impact on customer engagement. This change will be felt as we experience more new variants and subsequent periods of re-socialisation – and consumer behaviour will be driven by these patterns  as we learn to live with the disease. From this we’ll see three main camps emerge: those who want to return to how things were, those who embrace a hybrid lifestyle and others who adopt a purely remote way of living.”

“Age is a large determining factor driving this changing consumer behaviour. In many cases, it’s younger people who want to return to cities for that socialisation they’ve missed out on this past year, whilst slightly older groups are feeling the benefits of hybrid or remote working more as they have more flexibility to manoeuvre their working lives around families and other commitments. These two groups will be further consolidated in this next phase of the pandemic. Hybrid lifestyles will be solidified with new, flexible commuting patterns while remote lifestyles will become more normalised as families move out of cities and become full-time work-from-home employees.

Younger demographics have historically driven digital adoption. If you look at social media, for example, it’s the 18-35 year olds that make up 80% of users in the UK.  Yet while this age group will continue to lead the charge in embracing newer inventions, we’ll see older demographics start to adapt more to the everyday use of technology to support increasingly hybrid lifestyles. From here, we’ll see greater integration of technologies like digital communications tools to facilitate these lifestyles, so people can work more flexibly and efficiently in the way they choose. Overall, this will increase the prevalence of technology in all of our communities.

4. Business tech innovation decisions will be made based on making businesses ‘future-proof’ rather than just price. 

“The pandemic has highlighted two things for businesses when it comes to technology. First is the importance of having multiple communication channels to alleviate the risk of disruption for customers, and second is the need to invest in technology that will safe-guard businesses for the future. No one could have predicted the pandemic and its effects, but for businesses, it quickly became apparent that those who were forward leaning with their technology footprint were able to make the necessary adjustments to survive. Those who weren’t struggled, and many sadly didn’t make it.  I think this idea of making businesses ‘future proof’ has really taken root and will influence our investment decisions and priorities moving forward. Thinking about long-term solutions that can weather storms will become the way we decide on investment, more so than just considering price. This is also relevant when thinking about sustainability and climate change.

“Something else to consider here is the impact of the “Great Resignation” when it comes to future-proofing businesses. The relationship between organisations and their staff has changed for the long term, and employers are now having to ask themselves how they attract and maintain essential workforce when one in four employees are re-evaluating their careers. Investing in technologies that enable flexibility and open communication with employees and customers is no longer just an IT project — it’s about making fundamental changes to the business model to ensure survival and growth. Those who deploy the tools of digital transformation will be in a far greater position for the next uncertain wave arrives. This is what we mean when we say ‘future-proofing’.”

Movers & shakers: Talkwalker’s top 10 brands of 2021

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2021 flashed by, and brands across the globe kept the pedal to the metal to stay one step ahead of a relentless year. COVID restrictions eased and then returned, competition in the digital realm was fiercer than ever, and consumer preferences changed in the blink of an eye.

However, there were several brands that excelled against all odds, and these are the brands to draw inspiration from as we journey through 2022.

Click here to see Talkwalker’s top 10 brands of 2021.

Agile Queue Management – How to manage queues more effectively

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By Kirsty Ferguson, Enterprise Engagement Lead, Premier CX

N.B. This article was originally published in The Good CX Guide, an e-book on the topic of caller experience best practice.  To download the guide, packed with practical advice for contact centre professionals, please click here.

In most articles I have read about managing call queues, one piece of advice that always pops up is to be “dynamic”. However, what does that really mean? And how can you possibly even think about being agile and dynamic when you have a giant board of lights above your head with queue times rising above SLA and several callers waiting that you know aren’t going to get through before the lines cut off at the end of the day?

In reality, the answer is simple. USE THE QUEUE. Literally, use all you have available to you to manage your peaks and keep those boards at bay. In this brief article, I’m going to suggest how you can get started.

Step One – What You Can Use

Think about your arsenal. Do you have live chat? Do you have comfort messaging? Maybe you can publish your wait times. Whatever it is, use it in context. Being dynamic is about knowing what to use and when to use it. Furthermore, if you have enough agility to turn things on and off as you need to in real-time, then even better.

For example, if you have long queues and your live chat is switched off, switch it on and put a message in the queue telling the caller it’s now available. If you can stream, then chances are you can set parameters to automatically drop this message in when queue lengths hit a specific timeframe. Do you have the ability to stream in queue experiences? Can you publish your wait times? You may think you can’t utilise some of this stuff without IT’s help, but clever messaging can open a whole world of deflection that can help you manage your queues.

Step Two – Why Are the Queues There?

What has caused your queue? Is it external communication that’s resulted in a sudden influx of calls? Is it a forecasted spike or is it just an unknown? What is the most likely thing the caller is going to be talking to your agents about? Once you know the cause, you can account for how long the peak is likely to last and switch on helpful messaging in the queue when needed.

For example, suppose you have a power outage that affects a particular postcode. A simple CLI lookup will enable you to only advise callers from the appropriate geographical area of the outage and how long electricity is likely to be down. If you are receiving spikes for several reasons when queueing hits a certain threshold, why not introduce a more empathetic level of music/voice and tone into your queue. You could also add a message to advise that live chat is available or that non-urgent queries can be dealt with online.

Step Three – Get Your Caller Agent Ready

Is the caller ready? Think about what you need the caller to know, or have at their fingertips, when they get connected to help the agent assist them more efficiently. Things like delivery details, order numbers, account numbers, and so on. And if they don’t have this info, and you can’t talk to them without it, let them know (nicely, of course) before they get to an agent. Then when they call back, recognise the fact they are a repeat caller. You can use dynamic IVR to show you know they are a repeat caller and give them a message along the lines of:

“Thanks for calling back. We’ll put you straight through to someone who can help with deliveries, but if you want to talk to us about something else, press ‘1’ to go to the main menu”.

This will help prioritise your callers that are in the queue.

These are just a few ways that the queue and IVR can help you manage demand, keep you agile, and enable you to be dynamic when under the pressure of mounting call queues. Of course, some queues are just inevitable, but there is always something else that can be done by using what you have. You just have to look hard enough.

N.B. This article was originally published in The Good CX Guide, an e-book on the topic of caller experience best practice.  To download the guide, packed with practical advice for contact centre professionals, please click here.

Why CRM (still) fails

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CRM is a core component of the operational toolkit – even SME adoption levels have now reached 79%, according to a recent survey from Workbooks. And yet, CRM success rates are still too low. For every business achieving phenomenal business transformation, another will have wasted resources and seen zero return.

As a mature market, there are countless CRM solutions now available, many of which are loaded with fantastic features and functionality. So what makes the difference between CRM failure and CRM success? As John Cheney, CEO of cloud-based CRM vendor Workbooks, explains, it isn’t the technology that delivers success – success can only be achieved if companies set clear business outcomes at the point of purchase…

Pressure to Change

In a post lockdown economy, businesses in every sector are adjusting to change. Staff turnover has reached unprecedented heights as individuals rethink priorities. Customers have not just moved online but radically raised their expectations of the quality of experience at the same time. New markets have opened; others have been mothballed. It is little wonder that businesses are reassessing their existing CRM solutions and asking: why didn’t it help?

Done well, CRM provides a framework that can transform operational performance in many areas. And, as some companies discovered during the COVID-19 pandemic, a well-designed and well implemented CRM can support rapid changes in business direction – such as the company selling window shutters direct to the consumer that moved 100% online within days, as soon as measuring up visits to the customer’s home were prohibited. And yet, the risk associated with implementing CRM is widely recognised: in the Workbooks survey and report, The State of the CRM Market: An SME Perspective, 50% of SMEs confirm they are already on their second CRM platform. Too many companies are still buying CRM, only to discover it has failed to deliver.

What’s going wrong? According to the survey, the primary reason for failure is that the CRM solution is a poor fit for the firm’s needs (53%) – yet features and functions (62%) remain the most important factor when choosing a CRM. If a business has spent time ensuring the technology is a great match, why is it still a poor fit? This is a significant investment – so why are companies making such a hash of buying such a vital tool in the business armoury, something that can utterly transform performance, profitability and customer experience?

Outcomes not Features

Taking a technology first approach to finding the right CRM solution is a fast track to failure. Forget the features and functions – they come later. Companies need first to understand the business outcomes required from the investment. Driving revenue growth? Enhancing the customer experience? Reducing operational costs? Improving decision making? Without clearly defined business objectives, companies will struggle to achieve any value from the CRM investment, whatever product they choose.

It is only once business outcomes have been defined – and prioritised – that companies can truly understand the requirements of the CRM solution and set clear expectations for its implementation.  For example, many companies are looking to CRM to deliver a 360-degree view of all customers. Fine, most systems can offer to pull data together, but why? How is that information going to be used? And where, specifically, will the value be derived?

If the desired business outcome is to improve cross-selling, then pulling all data into one place will allow the business to improve segmentation and fine tune marketing. But will the sales team be automatically informed when customers click through a marketing email? Will these leads be scored to help sales people prioritise their response? Taking the time to truly investigate how CRM could support a priority business outcome turns the project on its head.

Technology Sell

Few SMEs, however, have the business analysis skills to undertake this process – and, unfortunately, the CRM industry on the whole is not set up to provide that support. For most CRM vendors, the product sell is typically features and functions focused. Then, once the deal is signed, the implementation project is handed over to an integration partner – a team that wasn’t involved in the original sales process or any discussions about the customer’s business needs.

The model is disjointed as a result: reinforcing the emphasis on ‘bells and whistles’ differentiation during the product assessment phase and offering little to no alignment with business goals or priorities – all of which can extend time to value for the customer.

Unique Business

The honest fact is that while there are some differences between CRM applications – most notably in the ease of integration, with those using open APIs making it far easier – the software is approaching commodity status. Business needs, however, are unique. Every company has its own structure, its own customer base and engagement model.

A CRM investment is about achieving a competitive edge, about being better than the competition – and actively looking to explore, capture and use business goals to define the CRM deployment makes the difference between failure and success.

Which is why SMEs need to take a different approach to buying CRM – one that starts with the business outcomes they want to achieve and, only once they have been prioritised, applies this insight to determine the functional CRM goals. Companies should look for vendors who can help them to define these business outcomes at the outset, in addition to offering implementation support. Delivering that end-to-end engagement, all the way from the initial outcome definition workshop to full implementation, ensures consistent product focus and maximises time to value.

Conclusion

When CRM projects work the business looks quite different. When projects fail, the business looks exactly the same – just financially worse off. And too many businesses, having been there before, are increasingly nervous of making the same mistakes. Faced with navigating a rapidly changing commercial landscape, companies are in a dilemma: they need CRM, they know it can work and deliver real value. But can they take the risk? Can they afford not to?

It is time to stop repeating the CRM mistakes of the past. Step away from product sell, the sparkly features and functions: it is businesses that prioritise outcomes and look beyond the technology – to what additional value a supplier can offer – that will be best placed to maximise ROI and achieve successful business change, fast.

Customer experience solutions: 2021 buying trends revealed

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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Agent Coaching & Monitoring, Customer Insight and Staff Incentives top the list of solutions the UK’s leading customer experience professionals are sourcing in 2021.

The findings have been revealed following the recent virtual Contact Centre & Customer Experience Summit, which took place on July 6th & 7th.

Delegates registering to attend the event were asked which areas they needed to invest in during 2021 and beyond.

A significant 53.3% are looking to invest in Agent Coaching & Monitoring, with 47% sourcing Customer Insight Collection & Analysis solutions.

Just behind were Staff Incentives & Motivation (46.7%), Staff Wellbeing (43.3%), and Call Centre Technology (40%).

% of delegates at the Contact Centre & Customer Experience Summit sourcing certain products & solutions (Top 10):

Agent Coaching and Monitoring 53.3%
Customer Insight collection & analysis 46.7%
Staff Incentives & Motivation 46.7%
Staff Wellbeing 43.3%
Call Centre Technology 40.0%
CRM 40.0%
Online Live Chat Systems 40.0%
Self Services 40.0%
Workforce Management/Optimisation 40.0%
Artificial Intelligence 36.7%

To find out more about the Contact Centre & Customer Experience Summit, visit https://contactcentresummit.co.uk.

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT: Stella Connect customer service feedback, coaching & QA

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In an ultra-competitive market, how do brands deliver great customer experiences that set them apart from their competition? It all boils down to human touch. Today’s front-line teams have become a major driver of customer loyalty and retention. That’s why we’ve built a platform to help you empower your front-line team to deliver great exceptional experiences.

Stella Connect offers service teams a humanized, real-time agent-level feedback platform, integrated quality assurance, and coaching that brings all of the relevant data points together. Get visibility into agent performance, and empower your team to deliver exceptional customer experiences with Stella Connect.

Click here to book your demo.

Why text messaging should be part of your omnichannel customer service strategy

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By mGage

Americans spend about five hours a day on their phones, according to TechCrunch. Consumers expect customized and genuine engagement in real-time, across all communication channels. This trend toward personalized conversational messaging isn’t going away, particularly in the business world. As a result, SMS has become a popular platform among businesses for customer service. As part of an omnichannel strategy, text messaging for customer service can lower costs and facilitate more convenient and engaging relationships between brands and customers.

What is Omnichannel Customer Service

Omnichannel customer service enables interactions between a consumer and a business through multiple touchpoints.

There is some confusion surrounding the difference between “omnichannel” and “multichannel” customer service. Multichannel means having multiple channels for customer support.  Omnichannel, however, describes delivering a seamless customer service experience across all of those channels by collecting additional data about the customer with each interaction. With omnichannel, you have a complete view of the customer, which facilitates delivering an excellent customer service experience.

In a siloed approach to customer service, customers often have to answer the same questions multiple times. It may be difficult to transfer discussions from one channel to another. Worse, agents may not have a complete record of prior communication, resulting in communication mishaps.

When text messaging is integrated with an existing CRM system through APIs, conversations can flow easily between online channels, phone calls, and SMS. More than 60% of customers interact through multiple channels, and regardless of time, place, device, or medium, they expect consistency[1]. By adopting an omnichannel approach to customer service, brands give customers an improved experience and more ways to reach them and, in exchange, get more information about the customer.

Consumers Want the Option to Use Text Messaging for Customer Service 

Did you know that 62% of companies report that customers like using chat options over voice? In fact, 58% of customers have attempted to respond to a missed call from a business with a text message. Customers are also four times more likely to respond to a text message than return a phone call after receiving a voicemail[2]. Yet less than half of companies surveyed offer text messaging for customer support[3].

There are many reasons to consider offering text messaging as a customer service channel, including…

  • Ubiquity
    96% of Americans own a cellphone that is capable of receiving SMS messages (Pew Research).
  • Immediacy
    Morgan Stanley reported that 91% of Americans keep their mobile devices within arm’s length at all times, and 90% of all text messages are read within 3 minutes of being received (2019 Mobile Usage Report).
  • Accessibility
    Text messaging does not require an internet connection and can be used by people with various disabilities, including those with hearing impairments. Offering multiple channels helps ensure that customer service is accessible to everyone.
  • Customer Preference
    Consumers show a preference towards text messaging, particularly for urgent notices. In fact, 67% of people said they would rather a business send them an appointment reminder via text instead of an email or phone call.
  • Efficiency
    Text messaging is usually a faster and less expensive way to resolve customer concerns. The average customer service phone call costs about $16, whereas an interaction via text can cost as little as $1, including the cost of the customer service agent’s time (Campaign Monitor).

Brands that add text messaging as a customer service channel will quickly realize both ROI and customer satisfaction benefits.

Adding Text Messaging to Your Customer Service Strategy

While companies sometimes view customer service channels as “competitors” of one another, the customer does not consider it in the same light. The customer sees a brand that is delivering a top-tier service experience. This is important, when you consider that 64% of people find customer experience more important than price when making a purchasing decision[4].

Omnichannel doesn’t just improve customer experience—It also delivers significant ROI and lowers costs thanks to improved customer retention and efficiency. Businesses that adopt omnichannel strategies see 91% higher year-over-year customer retention rates compared to businesses that don’t[5].

If you’re ready to learn more about how text messaging can improve your omnichannel customer service strategy, contact mGage today.

[1] Deloitte

[2] MessageDesk

[3] eMarketer

[4] Gartner

[5] Aspect Software

Thinking of Transforming your CX Strategy?

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By Foehn

At Foehn we work with our clients to deliver world-class CX strategies through the delivery of agile, digital, cloud-based solutions such as Genesys Cloud. We have helped many companies enhance their customer experience through our implementations, allowing them to use digital channels, CSAT tools, Workforce Management and Gamification to improve both the customer and agent experience.

Get in touch with us today to start your digital transformation journey!

www.foehn.co.uk

sales@foehn.co.uk

0330 403 0000

Customer experience management market to hit $21.8bn

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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The global customer experience management market is projected to reach revenue of $21.86 billion by 2027, equivalent to a CAGR of 13%.

That’s according to data from Fortune Business Insights, which cites the heightened importance of enhancing customer experience (CX) amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report asserts that with millions of people worldwide confined to their homes, brands are aggressively looking for avenues to maintain visibility among their customers and cater to their changing needs.

The unusual circumstances created by the coronavirus have forced companies to engage customers in a more meaningful way. For example, the cable provider Comcast deepened its customer experience management by developing short, topical videos powered by an interactive experience for its Xfinity cable service during the pandemic.

In China, a restaurant chain started delivering ingredients for meals usually enjoyed in communal settings at people’s doorsteps, ensuring no physical contact and strengthening its relationship with loyal customers. The variety of novel ideas triggered amid the COVID-19 pandemic enabled the market to register an impressive CAGR of 11.7% in 2020.

According to the report, the value of the market was estimated to be $8.29 billion in 2019.

Furthermore, the report says the proliferation of smartphones, mobile applications, and other smart devices has triggered a massive digitization trend among businesses. Enhancing CEM through virtual platforms and online portals has become one of the core strategies adopted by companies to foster long-lasting relationships with their customers.

However, with private customer information being available online in most cases, the threat of data breaches has escalated in recent years. Hackers are targeting digital platforms to extract critical data and sell them on the black market. For example, in April 2020, over 500,000 accounts on the teleconferencing platform Zoom were breached and then sold on the dark web by cyber-criminals.

Similarly, in India in January 2020, Unacademy, the popular online education platform, experienced a massive data breach, exposing more than 20 million accounts containing customer information related to email addresses, payment history, passwords, and usernames. The constant exposure of delicate information to cyber-attacks may inhibit the customer experience management market growth.

In 2019, the North America market size stood at $2.81 billion, and the region is expected to lead the market during the forecast period due to the speedy digital transformation of businesses in the region. CXM companies across the US and Canada are actively adopting and deploying customer experience management solutions powered by advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Thus, the market in North America is foreseen to progress at an incredible pace.

Asia Pacific is strengthening its hold on the customer experience management market share as a result of the broadening presence of AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) among enterprises in India and China. In Europe, on the other hand, the increasing number of call centers is expected to propel the regional market.