Customer experience (CX) expert Cyara has compiled six best practices that businesses should internalize to raise customer satisfaction. These insights, gleaned from Cyara’s front-line teams, celebrate #CXDay2018, a day to recognize the professionals and companies that make great customer experiences happen.
Cyara CEO Alok Kulkarni offers six ways a business can elevate the experience of its customers:
- CX should be at the center of any digital transformation.
Customer interactions are an integral part of the CX landscape and need to be a key component of digital transformation initiatives. For many companies, digital transformation investments are insufficiently allocated to the contact center, with the result that customers continue to wrestle with legacy systems. Recent studies show that while digital channels for customer interaction are growing rapidly, voice is still the preferred communications channel for pre- and post-sales support. - Without CX measurement, businesses are flying blind.
From the anecdotal to the hard stats, CRM professionals need to know how their CX is performing. CX leaders rely on a variety of metrics—from the big-picture metrics of Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) to real-time metrics such as dropped calls and correct connections. These real-time metrics deliver the true insights into the “now” needed to quickly identify and address problems customers are experiencing as they look for help. - Great CX innovation requires cross-team collaboration.
With the push for continuous integration and real-time innovation of front-line customer experience systems, it’s critical for organizations to successfully collaborate across development, testing, and operations teams, as well as between IT teams and business teams. Having a shared vision and collaboration tools are key to advancing in an agile, fast-paced mode of development. - Spikes happen. Systems fail. Be prepared.
Whether it’s Black Friday, annual insurance enrollment, or holiday travel, each business sector has its seasonal volatility, major product launches, and other high-volume periods. Spikes can also be unpredictable, such as a dramatic increase in insurance inquiries after a natural disaster. “Make sure you load test and ensure your system can handle massive volumes of in-bound enquiries, rather than finding out you under-provisioned just when your contact center is deluged,” says Kulkarni. - Stay informed and learn from the experience of others.
Cyara works with companies of all sizes across many industries and geographies — including their unique attributes, industry-specific regulations, and compliance requirements. Certainly, every company has its own brand values and personality—so implementations certainly vary—but the principles of world-class CX leaders remain consistent. “The attributes I consistently see with those who are most successful include prioritization of the customer experience, a cross-team dedication to excellent customer service, a culture of CX innovation, and a strong commitment to continuous improvement,” says Kulkarni. - Make it personal.
“As a CX technology provider, I’m a big proponent of applying technology to automate, test, manage, and deliver on your CX. Today, there’s also a great deal of excitement about what’s on the horizon with AI and chatbots. All that’s great, but all this technology has to be applied in service to each individual customer’s experience,” adds Kulkarni. Technology must help support the company’s commitment and mission, it must empower both its customers and its front-line agents, and it must personalize each and every touchpoint with the customer.
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