As customer expectations increase, research suggests organizations are lagging behind. Perhaps this is most evident in a 2022 Qualtrics survey which found that 62 percent of customers feel organizations do not care enough about them. Meanwhile, 60 percent would buy more if they were treated better.
A 2022 Zendesk report painted a similarly bleak picture, as it uncovered that 44 percent would switch organizations after just one bad experience.
Such statistics underline the significance of enhance customer experiences (CX) in 2022. Here are 14 ways that businesses can do just that.
1. Rethink Feedback Mechanisms
“Spam” and “junk mail” are not terms companies want to be associated with. Yet, surveying customers runs this risk. What’s more, response rates are typically low and do not always reflect the true impact of an experience.
Instead, organizations are becoming more creative in how they glean CX insights. Social listening, third-party review sites, and conversational analytics are excellent sources of fascinating insights that inform CX transformation initiatives.
2. Co-Ordinate CX Metrics
Often, different departments will track varying metrics to get a handle on how they impact CX. However, improving particular CX metrics, which stem from the company strategy, is ideally a company-wide task. Such metrics may include customer satisfaction, effort, or a net promoter score.
Creating mutual goals with respect to these metrics encourages collaboration that will likely enhance customer experiences. Tracking these metrics in real-time and through a business intelligence system is best practice to create a unified view of performance.
3. Go 24/7
A McKinsey & Company article states: “Customers believe they can get whatever they want, whenever they want, within minutes.” 24/7 customer service is central to meeting such a need.
Unfortunately, in many cases, it is not cost-effective to keep the contact center open at all hours. Nevertheless, customer support can continue with the help of bots across voice and most digital channels.
Conversational AI can also deliver the on new customer expectations with regards to speed of service, shortening call queues, and stifling recruitment issues.
4. Expand Your Digital Footprint with CPaaS
Customers are eager to engage with brands across different channels, and this is both a challenge as well as an opportunity. Communication Platforms as a Service (CPaaS) enable a scalable digital presence, where customers can quickly integrate new platforms like WhatsApp for Business, Instagram, Apple Messages, mobile marketing notifications, etc.
Often, CPaaS also offers enterprises the opportunity to kickstart more comprehensive cloud transformation projects, as businesses can gain quick wins thanks to API-enabled integrations.
5. Review and Update Knowledge
Over time, company knowledge – which it passes onto agents – grows stale. When this happens, employees may inadvertently pass on outdated information to customers.
To combat this, add expiry dates to pieces of knowledge to ensure review. Also, engage with contact center agents to spot gaps in the system, take advantage of embedded metrics, and consider which pieces of information may benefit particular departments.
For example, does a knowledge base highlight how agents can respond when a customer comes across a product problem? Perhaps this insight is useful to the design team so that they can address the upstream issue.
6. Gather Feedback During Moments That Matter
Some touchpoints matter more than others in terms of how they impact customer perceptions of the business. By gathering data at these touchpoints, CX teams can design more emotionally stimulating experiences.
Thankfully, this feedback does not have to be an intrusive activity. Modern technologies like customer experience management (CXM) platforms make it possible to collect reliable data without disrupting CX.
7. Strengthen Communication and Collaboration
Department leads should develop alliances across the business and collaborate to accelerate transformation. Consider the contact center as an example. By assessing critical contact drivers and identifying costly pain points, they can work with various departments to isolate and resolve upstream issues.
Also, as the hub of customer intelligence, the contact center may channel business intelligence into a unified view of customer experience – which other departments may exploit.
8. Build Better Self-Service Experiences
Customers often turn to self-service for support and will reach out to agents only as a last resort. If this first layer of CX falls short of expectations, the customer will likely reconsider their loyalty to a company.
For this reason, many CX teams are building an extensive online knowledge base, using virtual agents, and publishing video manuals. They then must regularly review the system, considering embedded metrics, customer feedback, and personalization opportunities.
9. Respect Customer Data Privacy
Companies can go further to show customers that they respect data privacy regulations by making disclaimers, privacy notices, and terms & conditions easier to navigate.
When customers feel like they have ownership and control over their data, they will be more willing to provide information to drive personalized CX.
Also, many CX teams will rethink how they harness third-party cookies to fuel CX strategies. After all, according to 2022 Twilio research, 81% of companies do just that, despite the data source being unavailable after 2023.
10. Assess Customer Intent
Customer intent refers to the real reason why someone purchased or researched a product, which often goes against demographic assumptions.
Without intent analysis, organizations risk forming stereotypical data buckets, leading to generic campaigns that do not hit the mark. The findings from customer intent analysis should inform CRM profiles and agent training.
In addition, measuring customer intent when they reach out – which companies can automate through speech analytics – will help companies to track critical improvement opportunities.
11. Connect Through the Cloud
As the everything as a service (XaaS) model evolves, enterprises increasingly integrate systems and enhance enterprise connectivity. In doing so, they make it easier to plug additional components into the existing CX stack without rewiring systems or workflows.
Indeed, the future of CX is likely to be platform-orientated, allowing companies to create and integrate a differentiated vision for customer journeys.
Delve deeper into critical CX trends by watching our video overview of the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2021
