Customers will favor digital-first companies that simply are easier to do business with. They
demand integration because they experience it with digitally native brands because their
technologies were created in an already integrated fashion. Legacy companies will need to invest
or lose market share to more innovative competitors. Customers now expect businesses to
provide them with a seamless, integrated digital user experience. In the next few years, we can
expect this trend to continue, and customer-centric companies that focus on digital experiences
will thrive.
Disconnected technologies create challenges for businesses when it comes to providing the best
possible customer experience. Customers today demand that all their interactions with a
company be easy and efficient—and disconnected technologies make that impossible. For
example, if a customer has to complete multiple forms or logins to access different services from
one company, this creates friction points which can lead to frustration for the customer as well as
lost business opportunities. Additionally, if companies do not have a unified view of their
customers across multiple channels and technology platforms, then they cannot accurately
predict customer behaviors or address customer needs quickly and effectively.
Integration is key when it comes to providing an optimal customer experience. Companies should
strive towards integrating all their various systems into one platform so that they can manage
their customer's interactions with ease.
Who uses the phone anymore? Even in business, we now message a party to check if it would be
OK to call. The same trends apply to customer experience. Messaging is efficient and a more
convenient channel for customer support, especially for non-urgent matters. Customers can start
and resume the conversation at their convenience much like we message friends and family.
They have the freedom to walk away to multi-task other activities. And the ideal experience is one
where if a voice interaction is required it is scheduled so to respect everyone's time. What is not
to like about this channel.
In the next few years, customers and companies will realize the importance of asynchronous
messaging. This type of communication is efficient, convenient, and provides users with the
freedom to multi-task while engaging in customer support or other conversations. Companies
should take advantage of this technology now.
Complicated transformations are not required to have excellent customer experience. In fact, they
usually do not result in a materially different outcome. It is about rolling up the sleeves, listening
to customer interactions, understanding customer journeys from a customer lens, and making
changes across multiple functions within an organization that will drive tangible results. If your
organization across all its functions is not walking the shoes of your customer, then you are lost in
your core purpose. Customer service teams can provide a lens to the customer experience, but
change comes from an organizational wide commitment to those customers.
Cross-functional teams—made up of representatives from departments such as marketing, sales,
product development, operations, etc.—will become more important than ever when it comes to
providing an exceptional customer experience. As we look ahead to 2023, it is clear providing
excellent customer experiences will require more than just focus from service teams. ast
response times or cutting-edge technology—it will require commitment from an entire
organization to collaborate closely with one another. It is about adopting more agile
methodologies and garnering insights from service channels to understand the opportunity for
change within an organization from a customer perspective. With the right approach, companies
can ensure they remain competitive by delivering top notch customer experiences. Remember,
customer experience is more than just a service experience, and, in many cases, the best
customer experience means no service experience at all.
This is such a novel concept. It is where the users of technology solutions are the ones that
program and optimize how they work. Many technologies now have a low-code, no-code user
interface enabling "citizens" to develop for their needs. Citizen development enables
organizations to make significant gains quickly, creating an agile environment that can rapidly
respond to customer experience trends and demands. An example of citizen development is
robotic desktop automation which can deliver more than 30% efficiency in customer support
handle times.
With citizen development, organizations can quickly create applications that address pressing
customer experience needs with minimal effort. Additionally, it eliminates the need for
expensive teams of software engineers or dedicated programming staff members, saving
organizations time and money while still producing quality results. Finally, citizen development
allows non-technical staff members to take ownership over certain tasks while gaining valuable
skills at the same time.
We can expect citizen development to become even more prevalent in business settings across
all industries. Organizations will begin investing more heavily in these types of tools as they
recognize the potential benefits they offer—not only giving them greater control over their
customer experience but also empowering employees who may not have had access to these
types of resources before. By democratizing access to these kinds of resources and making
them available on a wider scale, organizations will be able to invest in their personnel while also
improving the quality and efficiency of their operations overall—a solution where everyone
benefits!
Companies will stop attempting to delight the masses with generic solutions that attempt to be
a one-size fits all approach to making improvements in the customer experience. Leading
organizations peel back the onion and focus on customer intent analysis that enables a deep
understanding of specific issues. From there, business can solve those challenges and produce
an immediate ROI, increase customer share of wallet, and build brand loyalty with customers. It
is like any relationship, if you apply effort, it brings rewards.
Customer experiences need to be focused on individual customer intent. Companies are
realizing the key to success lies in understanding the specific needs and desires of their
customers, instead of attempting to provide generic solutions. By leveraging customer intent
analysis and data-driven insights into customer behavior, businesses can create personalized
experiences that drive higher returns, increase loyalty, and build lasting relationships with their
customers.
Cost reduction exercises in contact centers usually result in the same mess for less. This is great
if you are ambivalent to your customer. Not happy with how much your service experience costs
your company? What is creating the need for service experiences? Greater than 2/3 of service
interactions result from failures within a company to do something as committed to a customer.
We call this failure demand. Customer experience companies will want to eliminate failure
demand interactions to create capacity for value-based interactions to bestow their brand's
culture, renew/elevate trust, drive innovation, and deepen relationships. They will minimize
failure demand creating opportunity for value work and this equilibrium will be seen as the
optimal cost to grow.
Failure demand describes situations where customers have been let down or disappointed by a
company. This can happen due to poor service or products that do not meet the customer's
expectations. When this occurs, it results in the customer needing further attention from the
company which leads to additional support costs associated with dealing with them. By reducing
failure demand interactions, companies can save time and money while also providing better
experiences for their customers.
When companies reduce failure demand interactions, they create capacity for value work such
as establishing new customer relationships deepening existing ones. In this manner, businesses
can focus on optimizing the ROI associated with enhancing their customer experience practices.
By analyzing the impact of different failure demand interaction, companies can determine which
initiatives provide the greatest return on investment over time. This helps ensure that resources
are allocated efficiently and effectively towards initiatives that truly benefit both customers and
businesses alike. Where is the best place to look for these insights? Well, the service channel of
course. They are the lens to the overall customer experience within an organization.
Companies will want an out-of-box approach to omni-channel solutions so their customers can
seamlessly shift interactions from one channel to another. This is best done on a singular unified
platform where those experiences can be personalized based on the context of prior
interactions. It is a singular platform that integrates all your customer touchpoints-from
websites to mobile apps to messaging systems-into one unified interface. A leading provider,
for example, is Amazon Connect/Engage. They provide a unified platform that allows customers
to switch between different channels without having to reenter any information or explain their
issue multiple times. This type of platform also allows businesses to better understand how their
customers interact with them across different channels, allowing them to personalize
experiences based on prior interactions.
By using an out-of-box, unified customer experience platform, businesses can save time and
money while still providing a great customer experience. Not only does this help streamline
operations internally but it also helps provide customers with the best possible experience by
giving them access to the right information at the right time. Additionally, this type of platform
allows for the collection and analysis of data from all customer interactions which can be used
for further optimization and improvement in the future.
Getting started with an out-of-box unified customer experience platform is no longer daunting
thanks to cloud based SaaS solutions. There are now platforms available specifically designed
for businesses looking to make use of such solutions that offer preconfigured components as
well as custom development options so businesses can get up and running quickly without a
large upfront transition cost. 2023 is a year to stop talking about deploying omni-channel and
actually deploying omni-channel integrations to drastically improve overall customer
experience.
We've all heard predictions that AI bots will replace humans in customer service roles, but
experts are realizing that this is not the most effective solution. In fact, a combination of both
human and AI-driven customer service is ideal.
To provide an optimal customer experience, companies must understand how humans and AI
bots can work together to deliver a more efficient and effective solution than either could alone.
AI bots have access to vast amounts of data, which means they can provide personalized
recommendations based on individual user preferences or past behaviors. For example, if you
are shopping for a new laptop online, an AI bot may be able to suggest models with features
that match your profile. This type of customization provides customers with more tailored
experiences and increases satisfaction levels.
However, AI bots are not capable of providing the same level of empathy and understanding as
humans. While they can quickly identify patterns and automate certain processes, they lack
human intuition when it comes to understanding complexities or nuances associated with
customer needs. For example, if a customer has multiple issues or requests that need to be
addressed before they can be satisfied, an AI bot may struggle to handle them all at once
whereas a human could easily assess the situation and produce a more holistic solution quickly.
If a digital worker is quicker and more efficient than a human, customers welcome them in an
experience. The effectiveness of a digital worker needs human supervision and training. Front-
line service team experts are best to take on this role and companies will move service teams to
take on these roles. It helps to enrich the work of the service team and helps them to ensure
digital workers are complimentary to their efforts vs hindrances or obstacles in delivering
optimal customer experiences. Think of it as citizen development for the digital worker.
Service teams will be shifting their focus from reducing service volume goals to eliminating
customer issues. This is because companies are beginning to realize that reducing service
volume alone results in a bad customer experience, as AI bots or self-service menus can make it
seem like a company is creating obstacles preventing customers from talking to a human
support team. Fortunately, savvy companies recognize that they can optimize cost and improve
the customer experience by resolving upstream issues and leveraging self-service solutions to
create more efficient processes for customers.
Service teams have great insight to customer experiences. Their role in organizations is evolving
to provide a company with insights and analytics to drive upstream issue resolution for
customers. An organization must first understand that the ideal customer experience is no
service experience. In order to eliminate the need for a service interaction, teams must identify
the upstream friction that is the root cause for the inquiry. By proactively addressing the
problems or challenges faced by a customer before they reach out for assistance, companies can
make changes that eliminate this issue from occurring or they can provide self-service solutions
that create a more efficient process for customers to resolve these matters on their own.
For example, if a company notices that many of its customers have difficulty setting up its
product correctly after purchase, it could implement an onboarding program that walks users
through setup step-by-step or create detailed installation instructions available on its website
before customers ever reach out for assistance. By addressing potential problems before they
arise, companies can prevent unnecessary inquiries from coming into their service team while
also creating better experiences for their customers overall.
How is this different than volume reduction strategies? Eliminating customer issues may result
in volume reduction but it is about addressing real pain points for customers versus creating
systems that prevent customer interactions. It is also about determining whether the right
volume is coming into your service teams. Failure demand should be reduced, but value
demand where a customer wants to buy your product or service or deepen an existing
relationship with your business should be a welcomed interaction within a service channel. The
difference is having precision in your customer experience strategy. Precision is key in 2023.