Two Imperatives fora Delightful Frictionless CX
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Today’s ideal shopping experience is built on the personal touch. This means recognizing your customers, understanding their motives, need and intent to create an experience that is tailored to their specific preferences.
Until recently, it was quite difficult to deliver such experiences at scale. The rapid proliferation and availability of disruptive technologies such as smartphones, big data, AI and cloud has changed all of this. It all started with a new breed of digital native companies that adopted these technologies to transform customer journeys and inspire us with new possibilities.
Delivering these seamless experiences effectively were once strong differentiators for companies, but they are now the new norm in customer experience in every industry.
While each of our environments and business challenges may vary, there are some common themes that we can drive to design and deliver awe-inspiring experiences. My experience across multiple firms in a diverse set of industries have led me to narrow down the biggest opportunity for impact to two distinct themes .
A culture of proactive experiences
Things do not always go according to plan. Sometimes there are delays in the delivery of the product for reasons beyond our control. Now, many companies falter here by letting the customer wait in this ambiguous state of anxiety regarding the delivery status of their product due to the lack of information. Eventually the customer reaches out to the call center, often in agitation and ends up feeling worse if the issue is not resolved properly. A classic response that most companies turn to is to offer a discount coupon for future purchase. However, it may not be the best solution, given that a very agitated customer could have already canceled the order, leading to the loss of revenue, and most importantly – lose trust in the company.
Thus, how we respond to these situations is what will define us. By building on a culture of proactive engagement, we should be able to avert these unpleasant situations. Technology has advanced well enough that logistics companies are able to have accurate tracking capabilities.
That means, we now have intelligence to know when customers will receive their products, and what has caused the delay. And with this information, customer delight agents can call customers proactively to inform them of the delay. Having this open communication is what helps us to ease our customers’ anxiety relating to purchases and gain their trust for the long term.
The implementation of this proactive approach enabled us to improve our NPS scores and also gave us cost savings as we did not have to issue as many vouchers. There was a clear co-relation in data between informing customers of delays and the reduction in numbers of cancelled orders. By proactively reaching out to customers, the positive impact does not only reflect on the amount of revenue that may be made for the company but also on the improved perception that our customers have of us
Integrated Omni-Channel Experience :
As consumers today, we leverage a multitude of channels to engage with people around us. These range from email, voice call, live chat, WhatsApp, and other social media such as Facebook and twitter. Traversing through multiple channels is a norm for us and now we have come to expect the same flexibility in our engagements with brands, in fact, 75% of customers prefer it1 . That said, 72% of customers consider it poor service if they need to repeat their problems several times1
The challenge for most organizations though is that these interactions sit independently in their own platforms, and they are not connected. Customers end up bearing the frustration of providing repeated information and need to re-authenticate themselves during every switch.
Another area where the challenge is magnified is when support is needed on more complex requests requiring historical information. The implementation of an omni-channel solution enables the system to auto-detect the customer’s phone number, route customers based on issue complexity and provides relevant interaction histories, past orders, and preferences. This way, agents supporting the customer immediately understands the problem that the customer is facing and is able to seamlessly provide the support needed without asking for more contextual
information – enabling frictionless service and better experiences for both customer and agent.
Now that we have discussed our integrated approach from a service and support standpoint, let us discuss how the same approach can greatly enhance a physical store visit. When a customer enters the store, the store executive asks for the customer’s phone number. By keying in this number, a dashboard will be made available to the executive detailing the customer’s entire journey, from data such as their average order values, purchase history, and wish-list items. This allows the executive to shortlist products that the customer is most interested in – smoothening
their shopping experience with personalization.