Date post: | 22-Jan-2015 |
Category: |
Business |
Upload: | gds-international |
View: | 251 times |
Download: | 1 times |
WHITE PAPER MAY 2012
USHERING IN THE NEW ERA OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
By Marchai Bruchey, Chief Customer Offi cer
Thunderhead.com
01USHERING IN THE NEW ERA OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Both of these terms imply that it is all
about the customer; either managing
their relationship or managing their
experience. But unlike CRM, which is
largely focused on internal people,
processes and technologies; an inside
out view, CEM has taken a fundamentally
diff erent approach by focusing on driving
processes from the customer’s point of
view; an outside-in view. Customer
experience is a business issue that has
profound impact on overall business
objectives including but not limited to
customer retention, increased customer
loyalty, increased revenue per customer
and competitive diff erentiation. It can be
a game changer for organizations that
get it right.
At Thunderhead.com, we believe that
the world has changed forever driven in
large part by the adoption of social and
mobile technologies. It has been
reported that the average person carries
as many as four mobile devices at any
given time. Knowing when, where and
how to reach these customers and
prospects has become a daunting
challenge for most companies. The
diff erence between which companies
will win or lose will depend upon how
deeply they engage with their customers
and partners across all touchpoints.
Companies can’t avoid providing a
customer experience, so it is important
to make it meaningful and relevant.
Making this new world even more
complex are the customers themselves.
As terms go, the defi nition of Customer Experience Management (CEM) is as varied as its distant cousin Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
It is often said that we are living in the
age of the consumer, meaning that the
customer is in the driver’s seat. Gone
are the days where customers will
accept the status quo. Their options are
virtually unlimited in the digital world
and today’s customer doesn’t mind
switching. Back to the world changing
forever; just look back at employee
loyalty. It has direct correlation to the
thinking of today’s customer. Let’s look
at the traditional generation that came
into the workplace in the 1940s and
1950s. It was considered rare if
someone of that generation had more
than two jobs in a lifetime. When you
joined a company, you expected to
work there for life. This generation was
all about loyalty both to their employers
and to the companies they did business
with. The next generation, the baby
boomers, as they are called, started
experiencing the shift in employee/
employer loyalty in the mid to latter part
of their careers and can be expected to
have three to fi ve jobs during their
working life. They were not nearly as
reluctant to make a change as previous
generations and their mindset started
the shift to focus on customer
satisfaction. Now, let’s look at what is
known as Generation X & Y, you know
those children from what I like to call
the “fast food” world, a world where you
should never have to wait on anything.
This generation is expected to have
between 15-20 jobs in their work career.
Customer Experience Management has taken a fundamentally diff erent approach by focusing on driving processes from the customer’s point of view; an outside-in view.
02USHERING IN THE NEW ERA OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
This generation takes the customer
experience agenda to a whole new
level. They are the digital society and
use every channel available to them
to connect; mobile, Facebook,
Twitter, etc… Not only do they
connect but they will tell you
everything that you wanted to know
about themselves and then some.
It is diffi cult to reach this audience
that has little tolerance for mass
market messages and push
advertising, unless you can make it
fast, easy, relevant and in a language
they can understand. They tend to
travel in packs and therefore trust
their peers more so than the
companies they do business with so
peer recommendation is extremely
important. While this particular
demographic is quick to adopt social
media we have seen recently that
even unlikely demographics are
adopting its use – who would have
thought that middle aged women and
grandparents would be great
adopters, but research tells us they
are. Whether it’s to stay connected to
kids, grandchildren or friends in far
fl ung places. So even in this context
peer recommendation becomes
increasingly important. And don’t
forget those mass connectors and
mass mavens-the people out there
infl uencing the conversations with
millions of followers or those who
are beacons for a cause, service
or product.
Building an engaging relationship
with this vast set of customer
demographics, all of whom have
diff erent expectations, is hard and is
one of the biggest challenges for
companies today. Delivering the right
information, at the right time, on the
right device to your customer or your
employee serving that customer is
business critical. This opportunity can
be a company’s dream or nightmare
depending largely on how well you are
equipped internally from a customer
experience perspective.
Through the years, companies have
spent millions upon millions of dollars
on technology to manage the
customer relationship. These systems
by-in-large did a good job of creating
a system of record. But managing
customer experience is all about the
engagement, so companies need to
assess how they can tie all of the
disjointed, disparate systems together
and empower their employees to be
able to manage all customer
touchpoints across the business.
CRM systems were largely deployed
in a siloed fashion to meet specifi c
business objectives. Marketing
executives acquired marketing
automation solutions to create
demand for their product/service
and to handle both inbound and
outbound marketing needs for
customer acquisition. Sales executives
deployed sales automation solutions
to get their arms around pipeline and
forecast management and to manage
prospect/customer contacts.
Customer service executives designed
systems to better support the
customer after-sell and to insure that
customer issues were tracked and
ultimately solved.
Building an engaging relationship with this vast set of customer demographics, all of whom have diff erent expectations, is hard
and is one of the biggest challenges
for companies today
03USHERING IN THE NEW ERA OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Technology that used to help now gets
in the way because it isn’t integrated.
Increasingly, companies see the need to
drive this type of change not only in
their systems, but in conjunction with
employee engagement focused on
providing employees with the tools to
enable improved experiences, because
today’s customer doesn’t wait for IT
timeframes or massive deployment of
new customer solutions. Our point of
view is that companies must determine
how to leverage the investments that
they have made in technology and their
employees to design new ways of
managing the customer engagement
across all touch points. And if
technology barriers weren’t enough,
there is still a good bit of infi ghting
within organizations as to who “owns”
the customer; sales, marketing or
service.
Today’s customer views themselves as a
customer of the organization, not any
one group and companies serving those
customers need to do the same. For
instance, if a customer were to interact
with the customer service organization,
either by phone or web self-service,
they expect you to have a view of their
interactions across the entire enterprise
not just in the service organization.
Understanding and managing the
customer journey across the business
silos has become mission critical.
Today’s customer wants personalized,
contextual and relevant information at
every touchpoint whether they are
talking to someone on the phone or
interacting via the web or app. This will
require companies to know their
customers preferences, behaviors and
interactions like never before.
It is a great feeling to walk into an
establishment and be recognized
immediately and to be able to have a
conversation that takes into account my
previous history with the business and
to determine my current needs, fi nding
the vendor respond with the perfect
solution. This is the ultimate in customer
engagement. Your customers should
not have to put up with digital
interactions that are less satisfying than
face-to-face. The challenge is how to
create this same experience in the
digital world where you don’t have
face-to-face interactions.
Your customers should not have to
repeat themselves when moving
between channels or service
representatives. This is the biggest
complaint I hear regarding customer
experience. How many times have you
started an interaction in one channel,
let’s say the web, and could not
accomplish the task you set out to do,
having to email or phone the company
only to have to start all over and repeat
yourself suff ering broken conversations
at every turn.
Your customers should not have to put up with digital interactions that are less satisfying than face-to-face. The challenge is how to create this same experience in the digital world where you don’t have face-to-face interactions.
04USHERING IN THE NEW ERA OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Or better yet, enter your ten digit
account number in the IVR only to
have to repeat it again to the customer
service rep when he/she answers the
phone after your fi ve minute hold
time. These broken conversations can
have very adverse consequences from
a customer retention perspective and
they cost the business millions of
dollars. Fixing these simple issues can
improve the customer experience and
reduce cost for the business. A win/
win for everyone.
Your customers should not receive
communications that disregard their
stated preference for privacy or
contact. Remember the discussion
around know your customer?
Personalized, relevant and contextual
communications are a must for today’s
digital customer. Nothing can ruin a
brand’s reputation quicker than to
send irrelevant information to the
customer who has a twitter
community of over a million followers.
This may be an exaggeration but we
can agree that customers today have
a platform for sharing opinions like
never before and this digital savvy
customer doesn’t mind sharing
experiences online. One negative post
that goes viral can have dire
consequences for a brands value.
Your customers should not have to
read content that was designed for a
website but has been resized onto a
mobile phone. Not only should they
not have to read it, in most cases, they
won’t even attempt to. At this point
you have not only missed an
opportunity for engagement but you
have created an unpleasant experience
that, depending on the customer’s
journey with your organization, could
also mean a defection.
At Thunderhead.com, we believe that
there is a fundamentally diff erent
approach to better customer
engagement, ultimately leading to a
better customer experience. It’s about
removing friction within the business,
it’s about personalizing the digital
interactions, it’s about empowering
employees to serve your customers,
it’s about enabling collaboration and
changing the way businesses engage
with their customers.
Businesses are built on relationships.
In order to provide superior customer
experiences, companies need to
enable two-way interactive
conversations with customers. Every
communication, regardless of
touchpoint needs to have unmatched
real-time personalization across every
channel. In order to provide this level
of personalization you must combine
behavior, outcomes and experience.
It’s about knowing the customer so
well, they never need to contact you
because you anticipate their needs and
deliver moments that matter.
It’s about removing friction within the
business, it’s about personalizing the
digital interactions, it’s about empowering employees to serve your customers, it’s
about enabling collaboration and changing the way
businesses engage with their customers.
05USHERING IN THE NEW ERA OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Consistent customer experience goes
beyond the channel; it’s about the
customer journey. It’s about maintaining
a consistent, intelligent conversation
across all touchpoints while marrying
opportunity, engagement and servicing.
It’s about blowing up the silos and
realizing the full potential of integrating
back-end and front-end systems and
delivering the optimal content for every
conversation. Companies that can adapt
quickly to changing customer needs
proactively, managing the customer’s
journey across all digital touchpoints,
print, call centers and more will
ultimately improve the customer
experience, increase revenue potential
and infl uence brand value.
Adapting quickly to changing business
needs requires business software that is
purpose-built to give business users a
contemporary, intuitive user interface
that is easily embedded into daily work
life. Technology should be transparent,
relevant and empowering allowing you
to engage in real-time collaboration
with partners and customers. The
business user must be able to manage
every aspect of the customer’s journey,
being able to listen, adapt, engage, and
improve with little or no IT intervention.
In closing, the digital customer has
come of age and is driving many
forward thinking organizations to
rethink their customer experience
strategy producing a shift in the
technology market from systems of
record to systems of engagement.
While this shift is driven in large part by
the customer, there are many benefi ts
to the business for putting the customer
at the center of your strategy. The
left-hand column overleaf outlines
strategic business initiatives of many
companies today while the right-hand
column is the resulting benefi t to both
the business and the customer.
It’s about blowing up the silos and realizing the full potential of integrating back-end and front-end systems and delivering the optimal content for every conversation.
06USHERING IN THE NEW ERA OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
We are Thunderhead.com. Creating a powerful new force for business. Leading the advancement of customer experience by fundamentally changing the way businesses engage their customers and partners through utilizing a powerful suite of contemporary SaaS solutions delivered on a purpose-built cloud platform. Remarkable software for business users. Memorable experiences for your customers.
Brand Health
Loyalty
Lifetime Value
Cross/Up-Sell
Competitive Response
Enter New Markets
Off ers and Promotions
Budget Optimization
Deliver a consistent experience
Personalize every interaction
Manage the customer journey
Appropriate, informed interactions
Superior, diff erentiated experience
Change strategy at new speeds
Improved response rates
Leverage SaaS & existing IT investments