Category: Customer Experience

Celebrating the best work a team or organisation can achieve is in the DNA of Awards International. For 14 years, this company has been building a platform for CX initiatives to get recognised and set a new standard for customer experience. This is not the only reason their work is admirable. This Tuesday, we attended…
The post Let the red carpet roll: the UK CX Awards winners revealed appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

Without a doubt, the world has become more connected, noisier and more complex. But along the way, we’re still applying our instincts from a century ago, from a planet of villages and different expectations.

Rhetorical questions worth considering as we think about what’s normal. Where does here end and there begin? Is there a line between freedom and responsibility?

Is it okay to:

Drive at 80 mph in a school zone?Smoke on an airplane?Spam a list of email addresses?Use a gas-powered leaf blower?What if it’s against local regulations?Shoplift?Pirate an ebook?Ride a scooter on the sidewalk?Aggressively market addictive painkillers while concealing the dangers?Send kids to a school where they don’t learn to read or write?Dump garbage from your factory into the river? The atmosphere?Play loud music at midnight in your apartment?Not get a polio vaccine for kids?Actively fund construction on a new coal plant?

No right answers, but urgent questions at scale.

Companies that neglect customer experience are doomed to failure. They build products that no one uses, invest in the wrong technology, and simply encourage clients to seek positive engagement elsewhere. On the contrary, businesses that orchestrate interactions with customers and fine-tune processes to create unified experiences see people flocking in. That’s because they make their customers part of the product — they understand the customer’s need, reasons behind it, and respond appropriately. CX mindset helps them get rid of common product development risks. And I can prove it. No market need — 35% failure rate Root cause: poor customer research The latest CB Insights study suggests that 35% of companies fail because their products are of no use in the market. You are never going to survive if you offer people something they simply don’t want. It feels so obvious, but again and again, businesses fall into this demand trap. Why? Because in most cases, they are driven by their gut feeling, and not facts. It is never a good idea to start a venture unless you proved its viability. You can avoid this product risk by referring to your knowledge of the customer. Make sure to perform comprehensive customer and market research, surveys, one-to-one interviews, and focus group testing. If you skip this stage, there’s a high probability that you will fail. Got outcompeted — 20% failure rate Root cause: unsatisfactory customer experience Unless you’ve come up with something outstanding, a dozen other entrepreneurs in your target market have already built a product with similar functionality. Interestingly though, only some of them enjoy the growing demand for their products. How so? After all, they are the same at the core. The cold hard truth is that those in-demand products offer more than just functionality. They offer improved customer experience. And people are willing to pay for this. Flawed business model — 19% failure rate Root cause: lack of agile culture I’ve touched upon it already. Customer behavior changes, market changes, pushing you to also change fast. The customer may love your products or services today, but then, opt for your competitor tomorrow. In fact, the research says that modern customers are less brand-loyal. They tend to consistently switch between brands in a bid to find one that is more convenient for them. In order to appeal to this new generation of customers, you need to adopt the mentality of continuous innovation. If you know your customers well and analyze their behavior regularly, you understand their buying drivers. That’s how agile companies work. They make the ability to respond fast their first priority. Not the right team — 14% failure rate Root cause: lack of cross-functional practices Often, business leaders confuse CX (customer experience) with UX (user experience) and delegate the responsibility for enhancing the customer experience to the UI/UX design team. That’s a mistake. Although both concepts are based on experience design, there’s a clear difference between CX and UX. UX is about how easy-to-use and helpful your digital product is; CX stands for how the customer feels about both the product and the entire brand throughout the customer journey. UX is just a part of CX. That said, customer experience is everyone’s responsibility within your company. When designing it, bring a diverse team to the room — a CX strategist, UI/UX designer, product architect, marketing specialist, market researcher, sales manager, customer support rep, etc. As a result, you’ll be able to break down silos and design a truly unified positive experience across all points of contact with your customer. submitted by /u/joe_dojo [link] [comments]

Big companies act like big companies. We don’t take them seriously when they say they care, because there is no “they.” When they send a holiday card or an email, we don’t really think it was from a person we could connect with.

Individuals act like individuals. When they write us a note or show up in person, we know that we’re dealing with a human.

In between, though, problems arise.

Did your friend really write that tweet, or did the staff do it?

That email that you just got, BCC… when you hit reply, will it go to the person who purported to send it, or to a team, or the infinite void?

The voice in our head changes when the identity of the sender differs.

When individuals try to scale, they often think they can bring their care, personality and person-hood along for the ride. And inevitably, it ends up disappointing everyone. It’s possible you can trick us for a while, but if you succeed in persuading us that you’re a real person, we’ll feel tricked sooner or later.

If it’s not from you, say so.

submitted by /u/CustomersX [link] [comments]

Many factors influence how a customer feels about your brand and the overall experience they have when using your products and services. However, one of the biggest factors is communication. Good communication is everything when it comes to giving a good impression of your brand. It can mean the difference between a happy, returning customer…
The post Why effective communication is important for customer experience appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

After-call surveys give you rich insights into your call center’s day-to-day operations. They’re kind of like customer satisfaction surveys, except they’re sent to a customer immediately after an agent-customer interaction. Why does the immediate timing matter?
There’s something special about the after-call survey’s authenticity. Think of freshly baked chocolate cookies right out of the oven. You could eat them later in the week, but you won’t experience the same soft dough and delectable, melt-in-your-mouth gooey chocolate. It just doesn’t taste the same.
After-call surveys are similar. The immediate insight into the customer experience is rich with fresh insights you can use to improve your customer service strategy and learn more about your call center. But asking the right questions is key to solid survey results. Read on for our top questions to include in your after-call surveys.
5 Reasons to Use After-Call Surveys
3 Tips for a Great After-Call Survey
As you craft your survey template, mull over these three important considerations to improve your after-call surveys.
Keep it short and sweet
Respect your customer’s time and keep the after-call survey quick. Don’t worry—we’ll cover some high-value questions that’ll offer your contact center solid insights.
Don’t rely only on open-ended questions
Sure, open-ended questions offer customers the chance to vent their feelings. But right after a phone call, they might be in a rush to end the interaction. Post-call surveys should feel breezy for the customer, so multiple-choice or scaled questions are a great way to go.
Offer multi-format after-call surveys
Why limit survey data to just phone calls? Invite customer feedback through every channel, including SMS, email, and chat.
7 Great Questions to Ask in After-call Surveys
1.   Was it easy to find our contact information?
Accessibility goes beyond offering physically accessible spaces like wheelchair-accessible bathrooms. Your call center should consider it in every business process, including inbound calls. That includes making contact information easy to find, easy to read, and available in alternate formats; in other words, make it accessible!

DID YOU KNOW?:
Fonolo’s Visual IVR is ARIA-compliant and accessible to people with disabilities?

2.   How long did you wait on hold?
Hold times shouldn’t be exorbitantly long—but if they are, the IVR software should inform the customer of their place in line or offer a call-back.
Over 54 million Americans have a disability, including neurodevelopmental disorders, motor issues, and learning disabilities that might make waiting on hold with no explanation more difficult. And for customers without disabilities? An accessible call center is simply good customer service
3.   On a scale of 1-10, how knowledgeable was the call center agent you spoke with about your inquiry?
As call center leaders, you already know that many moving parts impact agent performance. Training, staffing levels, recruitment, and agent engagement all play a role. But after-call surveys offer some insight, too.
Poor understanding of the customer’s inquiry or the company products indicates a hiccup. That hiccup may be a small part of a bigger problem, but it’s enough to raise a flag for further investigation.  You can pair this insight with other KPIs and metrics to paint a broader picture. Questions that are framed with an ordinal scale offer your contact center valuable qualitative data to understand your customer experience.
4.   Was it easy to understand the call center agent?
This is another great accessibility question. You might use a likert scale for responses, asking the customer to rate their agreement with the statement on a scale from 1-5. Unclear conversations could be the result of poor tech, lack of agent confidence, or even overlooked accessibility standards like offering options for people who are hard of hearing.
5.   Did you solve your problem?
Three words: first-call resolution, or FCR. This question gives you insight into this valuable metric that speaks to both service quality and operational efficiency. It also wins accessibility points because it measures service time.
Our next question dives deeper…
6.   Why didn’t you solve your problem in the call?
This is a great multiple-choice question. Low FCR rates are worth exploring, and this question does just that. You might offer options like:

Poor technology or connection
Unhelpful agent
Escalation
Long wait time

7.   Are you satisfied with our service? If so, which aspects are you satisfied with?
Product and services pricing? Agent tone of voice? Expert knowledge? Quick resolution? List anything positive in this question’s multiple choices. It’s a great question to identify the good things going on in your call center. A nice bonus? You can use positive feedback to boost employee engagement.The post 7 Great After-Call Survey Questions first appeared on Fonolo.

I’m not sure we have a common word for this.

“Yes” can mean, “yes, I’m prepared to do the minimum” or it could mean, “yes, this commitment is something I wholeheartedly embrace and will devote myself to exceeding expectations at every turn.”

Life’s way better if we find partnerships that are the second kind.

“All in” is rare, but it actually means something.

This survey aims to inform design decisions for the next generation of shopping trolleys/carts. The results of this survey will create a better understanding of the needs and wants of disabled/handicapped shoppers. Any response will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! submitted by /u/DisplayZealousideal1 [link] [comments]

We at the CXM team have always prided ourselves on our values. Connection, knowledge, and bravery. We want to build a community to overcome challenges together.  When learning about us on our homepage, we specify – ‘we are here to explore what it means to build businesses with humans at their core’. With our newest…
The post The first edition of CXM Review taps into the unknown of a new era of CX appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.