Category: Customer Experience

As a new year draws closer, now is the time to rethink, reassess, and reimagine the customer experience. Markets continue to be affected by unprecedented challenges and uncertainty, making it critical that businesses not only win back customers but generate new growth opportunities. Here are 3 must-have factors that will enable businesses to do exactly…
The post Innovation, Flexibility and Teamwork: 3 CX Essentials to Thrive in 2021 appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

When a small enterprise offers a lousy user experience, the person in charge learns about it, fast.

Customers leave, visitors bounce, complaints roll in. It’s expensive and it undermines the goals of the organization. Fortunately, in a small organization, the person with the ability to make change happen hears about it and can take action.

In a large organization, like my bank, the resources to make things better are dramatically bigger and largely underused.

That’s because the person who should take action has other priorities. Not only aren’t they exposed to the valuable feedback that frontline workers get (because the organization doesn’t reward ‘bad’ news), but they haven’t prioritized getting the user experience right.

It seems more important to please the boss, go to meetings and keep the numbers on track than it is to fix what might not feel broken.

Spend some time in the store.

Visit your own website to get work done the way a customer would.

Answer the tech phone calls for a few hours.

And figure out how to turn the user experience into a metric that’s as easy to measure as how much money you made last month.

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The survey also shows that 65 percent of state CIOs believe that artificial intelligence (AI) is the emerging technology area that will have the biggest impact on citizen experience in the next three to five years. This includes using machine learning (ML), robotic process automation (RPA), and chatbots to advance digital government. As state IT leaders look to the future of digital transformation, chatbots offer the perfect opportunity to dip their toe into the waters of AI. To be more specific, chatbots are a great way to offload some of the basic tasks that call center agents handle. By automating information delivery in a conversational manner, citizens get the information and services needed and call center employees can concentrate on more complex questions that require greater effort. Full article: https://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/2020/10/expectations_with_ai_and_chatbots/
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Cloud computing giant Salesforce is acquiring workplace chat app Slack, the two companies announced on Tuesday. Salesforce is paying $27.7 billion for Slack, according to the press release. “Under the terms of the agreement, Slack shareholders will receive $26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares of Salesforce common stock for each Slack share, representing an enterprise value…
The post Salesforce Acquires Slack for $27.7 Billion appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

You want to increase your customers’ happiness? Great! But how to measure this phenomenon which seems quite difficult to grasp? How to prove the added value in your company’s revenues to make the financial benefits visible? A guide to square the circle. Customer Experience (CX), in our world of B2B, is a separate discipline. Companies…
The post The Value of B2B Customer Experience appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

Over the past few years, CX has become more than just a hot topic. It’s become the heart of business conversations.
To truly provide the best service for your customers, you need to focus on their entire journey with your company — examine their touchpoints, interactions, and expectations and ask yourself: Is there a way to make this process simpler?

To truly provide the best service for your customers, you need to focus on their entire journey with your company — examine their touchpoints, interactions, and expectations and ask yourself: Is there a way to make this process simpler?…Click To Tweet

We’ve put together a list of technologies that can help you reduce friction in your customer support channels just in time for the new year!
1. Bio-authentication
Facial recognition and fingerprint scanning are some of the ways your customers are accessing a key-free world. The biometric system market is expected to grow to $33 billion by 2023.
Aside from the security benefits, bio-authentication technology plays a huge part in eliminating friction (no more clunky, complicated passcodes) and creating opportunities for more personalized services and experiences.
3 Crucial Contact Center Trends in 2021
2. Smarter self-service options
When designing a superior CX strategy for your business, it’s not just about how you can serve your customer. It’s about how you can empower them to address their own issues as well.
With millennials forming the majority of consumers and Gen Z right on their heels, it makes sense to provide them with the tools and tech they need on their smartphones. By providing self-service options (such as chatbots or FAQ pages), your customers can quickly and easily find the answers they’re looking for without clogging up your phone lines.
3. Smarter query routing
One of the biggest friction points in a contact center comes from customers who connect to the wrong department. So begins the dance of endless hold time and call transfers — a waste of time for both your agents and customers.
What Customers Want and Expect in Customer Service
By reviewing your IVR menu and walking through your customer journey, you can pinpoint any areas of confusion or friction for your customers. Consider the most common queries your agents receive — are the prompts absolutely clear? Are there any gaps in your offerings?

TIP:
A Visual IVR is a great alternative to a phone menu. It allows your customers to select options on a smartphone screen, rather than replaying the audio options over and over (“Press 1 for X… press 2 for Y…”)

4. Better accessibility
One of the biggest turn-offs for customers is not having access to support when they need it! No, we’re not just talking about having your phone lines open 24/7 — we’re talking about being there for all your customers, including those who have time constraints and special needs.
Don’t just consider ease of accessibility for your “average” customer. Think of your elderly customers who may struggle to locate an FAQ on your website, closed captioning on videos for your customers who are hard of hearing, and simple website layouts for your customers without access to high-speed internet.
A visual IVR can be a very powerful tool for making your contact center more accessible. And it allows you to optimize the flow of customers from your website to phone lines.
5. Call-back technology
No customer is happy when they feel their time is being wasted. Yet call centers still operate on the same old system, expecting their callers to wait for the chance to be connected with a support agent.
Contact Centers Are Using More Call-Backs Than Ever
When a service becomes a hassle for the customer, it becomes a chore. Don’t expect your customers to earn your help. Call-back technology is the best way to provide a simple service that says, “we value your time!” while easing the burden off your support agents.
The post 5 Ways to Remove Friction in Your Customer Support Channels in 2021 first appeared on Fonolo.

Unlike natural phenomena like orbiting planets or geologic formations, there are no consistent and perfect laws of human behavior.
If we’re talking about groups of people, if we’re teaching, leading or trying to predict future behavior (all three are related) then we’re making a generalization.
And perhaps we don’t realize it, or aren’t clear that we are.
“In general, in many settings, most kindergarten kids have trouble getting through a long day without a nap.”
That’s not quite the same as, “all kids need a nap.”
Useful generalizations are essential to productive interventions and generous leadership.
Without generalizations, it’s almost impossible to begin to serve people.
And there lies the trap. If we stick with them too long, or insist that they are absolute, or fail to seek out the exceptions that all generalizations have, then we end up excluding or ignoring people who need to be seen. Which betrays all the work we set out to do.
We begin with a market or an audience, but we ultimately serve the individual.

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Greg Melia, CEO of Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) discusses the rise and the faults and of CX job positions and the trends over the past several years that influenced these. See below the whole presentation and Q&A session below:
The post CXTrendTalks: Greg Melia, CEO, CXPA appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.