Thanks for the round-up Neil, it does show what a lot has happened in the last decade. However, the key point for me is within your first section - despite all the focus and all the investment, customer satisfaction is dropping on both sides of the Atlantic. This really shows that brands need to think again about CX and whether what they are doing actually meets the needs of customers, now and in the future.
It is fascinating how increased automation is changing the balance between the human and technology element of customer service. As the report says, human agents will need to focus on more challenging interactions, which will not only require different skills, but ultimately will be more interesting and rewarding. We’ve put together a guide to some of the skills these agents of the future will require in this blog post https://www.eptica.com/blog/creating-customer-service-agents-future
As the phrase goes “what gets measured, gets managed” but as the current hubbub over NPS shows, you need to have the right metrics in place to match your goals. According to Gartner there are over 100 commonly used CX metrics and a recent blog of ours explains how you can go about choosing the right ones for your business https://www.eptica.com/blog/measuring-customer-experience-three-key-cons...
These findings demonstrate the importance of delivering fast and accurate answers - unfortunately our own evaluation of top UK brands found that many struggle to respond within 24 hours. For example, it took one bank 8 days to answer an email, and a fashion retailer responded to a tweet in 50 hours. More on these results here https://www.eptica.com/prdtcx
NPS and the like only take you so far - they don’t allow you to find out Why customers feel they way that they do. That’s one of the key reasons they are seen as disconnected from business metrics. Instead, for CX to be effective you need to be listening to customers and using their insight to drive constant improvements - as we outline in this blog post https://www.eptica.com/blog/why-traditional-voc-metrics-don-t-deliver-in...
I completely agree David, particularly with the second point. It is worth looking at interactions on a 3x3 grid, with the dimensions being urgency, complexity and emotional importance. You need to cover everything from the most complex, urgent and emotionally involved conversations (best achieved over the phone or face-to-face) down to the simpler, more routine ones that can be handled by self-service. A good starting point is to map your interactions on this grid to see where you need to assign resources to meet customer needs.
It is extremely positive to see such large investments planned in CX. While some companies are excelling research from Forrester shows that many are either treading water or getting worse. Our own research shows a big difference between leaders and laggards, making it essential that investments are targeted to fix issues, drive innovation and ultimately improve the bottom line.
LOVE the image at the top! Also, being able to measure the effectiveness of your customer success is central to ensuring that the mindset is adopted across your organisation. This means adopting more detailed metrics than previously - you need to look at ‘Why’ customers are saying or acting in a particular way, rather than just ‘What’ they are doing. We’ve set out how you can achieve this in our blog post https://www.eptica.com/blog/why-traditional-voc-metrics-don-t-deliver-in...
There’s been a lot of talk about customer experience failing to deliver Chris, and
I’d really stress the importance of your point about collecting (and acting on) the right customer feedback. Consumer expectations are rising continually - if you don’t understand what they really want, you can’t hope to differentiate yourself in the market.
My answers
Thanks for the round-up Neil, it does show what a lot has happened in the last decade. However, the key point for me is within your first section - despite all the focus and all the investment, customer satisfaction is dropping on both sides of the Atlantic. This really shows that brands need to think again about CX and whether what they are doing actually meets the needs of customers, now and in the future.
It is fascinating how increased automation is changing the balance between the human and technology element of customer service. As the report says, human agents will need to focus on more challenging interactions, which will not only require different skills, but ultimately will be more interesting and rewarding. We’ve put together a guide to some of the skills these agents of the future will require in this blog post https://www.eptica.com/blog/creating-customer-service-agents-future
As the phrase goes “what gets measured, gets managed” but as the current hubbub over NPS shows, you need to have the right metrics in place to match your goals. According to Gartner there are over 100 commonly used CX metrics and a recent blog of ours explains how you can go about choosing the right ones for your business https://www.eptica.com/blog/measuring-customer-experience-three-key-cons...
These findings demonstrate the importance of delivering fast and accurate answers - unfortunately our own evaluation of top UK brands found that many struggle to respond within 24 hours. For example, it took one bank 8 days to answer an email, and a fashion retailer responded to a tweet in 50 hours. More on these results here https://www.eptica.com/prdtcx
NPS and the like only take you so far - they don’t allow you to find out Why customers feel they way that they do. That’s one of the key reasons they are seen as disconnected from business metrics. Instead, for CX to be effective you need to be listening to customers and using their insight to drive constant improvements - as we outline in this blog post https://www.eptica.com/blog/why-traditional-voc-metrics-don-t-deliver-in...
Thanks for these Jeanne. Looking at the importance of trust to customer experience, I’d recommend these 5 books - one of which (The Effortless Experience) is on your list already. Happy reading! https://www.eptica.com/blog/5-books-help-you-build-trust-across-customer...
I completely agree David, particularly with the second point. It is worth looking at interactions on a 3x3 grid, with the dimensions being urgency, complexity and emotional importance. You need to cover everything from the most complex, urgent and emotionally involved conversations (best achieved over the phone or face-to-face) down to the simpler, more routine ones that can be handled by self-service. A good starting point is to map your interactions on this grid to see where you need to assign resources to meet customer needs.
It is extremely positive to see such large investments planned in CX. While some companies are excelling research from Forrester shows that many are either treading water or getting worse. Our own research shows a big difference between leaders and laggards, making it essential that investments are targeted to fix issues, drive innovation and ultimately improve the bottom line.
LOVE the image at the top! Also, being able to measure the effectiveness of your customer success is central to ensuring that the mindset is adopted across your organisation. This means adopting more detailed metrics than previously - you need to look at ‘Why’ customers are saying or acting in a particular way, rather than just ‘What’ they are doing. We’ve set out how you can achieve this in our blog post https://www.eptica.com/blog/why-traditional-voc-metrics-don-t-deliver-in...
There’s been a lot of talk about customer experience failing to deliver Chris, and
I’d really stress the importance of your point about collecting (and acting on) the right customer feedback. Consumer expectations are rising continually - if you don’t understand what they really want, you can’t hope to differentiate yourself in the market.