The customer experience is paramount to a brand’s success. Of course—without customers, brands don’t exist. But do brands spend enough time, energy and resources ensuring customers are satisfied and their experiences are positive? Do brands “put their money where their mouth is” and support customer service efforts with time, training and resources? Do brands own every moment?
Nope. That’s right, I said no. Some brands do a good job focusing on the customer while others go about their business without thinking twice about the customer experience, beyond “did they complete the transaction?” Those brands, the ones that don’t consider their customers’ experiences, are doing it wrong. And they are at risk of failing.
It sounds harsh but it’s true. And it begs the question—why? Why don’t brands focus on the customer experience when it could make or break them?
It’s a good question, and one I’m personally very interested in. LiveOps recently partnered with ICMI on a research project focused on the customer experience. The report resulting from that research has just been released. It’s called “Own the Moments! Understanding the Customer Journey” and the results of this research are enlightening. I found three key points of interest:
- The customer experience is the “sum of key moments”
- Real-time, proactive customer engagement is now a must-have
- Brands should think like a CEO when managing contact centers, focusing on impacts to top-line revenue
Brands must own every moment in customer interactions, since the sum of those moments—especially the important ones customers remember—define the customer experience. Did you know that the most critical moments are handled by a brand’s live agents? As a matter of fact, 96 percent of survey respondents identified agents as having a significant impact on the customer experience. I think the statistics below say it all.
Customer Journey Touchpoints Research
Today’s constantly connected, busy, channel-hopping consumers expect brands to provide personalized service quickly and accurately. To succeed as a brand, real-time, proactive customer engagement is no longer a “Nice to Have” but a “Must Have.” Don’t be a part of the 20 percent (!) of survey respondents that have zero visibility into basic information such as customer contact information and history when interacting with customers. It’s a matter of survival to engage effectively, whether it be marketing, selling or providing customer service…a brand’s survival and bottom-line depend on it.
Real Time Customer Information Research
It’s increasingly important for brands to “think like a CEO” when managing contact centers. Instead of obsessing over “cost saving” and “efficiency” metrics, brands should be concerned with how contact centers are impacting top-line revenue. That means measuring CSAT, NPS and Customer Retention (when an account is “saved”). Customer Lifetime Value increases because of what brands do—focusing on “cost per contact” and “AHT” types of metrics doesn’t help. It’s more effective to focus on the forest and not the trees to establish a solid business case. That way, the contact center is aligned with metrics the CEO and management team care about and all kinds of budget and empowerment resources will become available.
CX Metrics Research
Brands must remember that people matter. People within the brand and people outside the brand—customers, partners, vendors, prospective customers, competitors. Brands must work hard and work smart to harness talent and technology to offer an outstanding customer experience and maintain solid, positive customer relationships. Brands must make an effort to own the customer experience, moment by moment, from start to finish. Check out the white paper and the research report in its entirety to learn more about what brands can do to do it right—to focus on and improve the customer experience.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
