Matt Hooper, SVP at IMImobile, discusses the importance of placing the customer at the heart of the business.
In the not too distant past, businesses were able to compete on the strength of their products and services alone, but those days are largely behind us. The catalyst for this shift has been led by ‘platform’ companies such as Amazon and Uber who get referenced everywhere and have given consumers a taste for seamless customer experiences across numerous channels – whether they’re using Alexa to verbally order groceries or using Twitter to arrange an appointment at an Apple Store.
Consumer behaviour and expectations have evolved in line with these developments and brands that don’t offer a joined-up experience, with customer communications at the centre, risk losing customers. However, organisations are struggling just to keep up with minimum expectations of their customers, with Gartner revealing that only 22% of customer experience leaders are currently exceeding expectations. So why is this?
Tying themselves in knots
Businesses across all industries are striving to create seamless experiences across multiple communications channels. However, the reality is that many traditional market leaders have been caught out by the new wave of digital disruptors and the evolution of consumer behaviour in the convenience economy, like the rise of smartphones and messaging apps. Established firms typically cannot move quickly enough to introduce new customer engagement technologies as they are often weighed down by legacy technology systems and slow-moving Digital Transformation programmes.
Businesses are spending significant amounts of time and money wading through layers of complexity attempting to integrate legacy systems and processes with new communications channels. The different channels and sources of information can become as tangled as Spaghetti Junction. If you’ve ever had to navigate that famous tangle of roads in Birmingham, you will know just how easy it is to take a wrong turn. Brands are finding it similarly difficult to route communications and data across customer journeys in the right direction.
This problem is set to become more common, as the shift towards omnichannel has made customer experience more of a battleground than ever before. New communication channels are becoming more readily available and brands must be able to rapidly adapt to changing consumer expectations. A fragmented approach towards customer communications is no longer acceptable; customers do not expect one way ‘do not reply’ messages anymore or waiting in a telephone queue for support.
A platform for success
Adopting a platform approach to customer experience, where all communications are developed, controlled and evolved in a single place, enables companies to effectively manage all their communications channels centrally and rapidly build new customer journeys across any touchpoint or digital channel (e.g. customer welcome journey, appointment scheduling, claims handling, etc.). This will allow companies to deliver proactive, automated and two-way communications, meeting the expectations of customers both today and in the future.
Historically, companies have relied heavily on a programming-intensive approach when building the system code to support customer journeys. This can be both expensive and time consuming, causing integration and iteration issues when the business wants to make updates or changes. However, the emergence of low-code ‘drag-and-drop’ development, which enables visual composition and delivery of new customer journeys, allows companies to build, change and optimise the services they support in real-time.
Proceeding with caution – there is no need to exceed the speed limit
Companies understand the significance of automation and AI, particularly when it comes to improving operational efficiency and reducing cost; it is also is key to companies being able to deliver proactive customer communications. Customer service automation and AI will only have a positive impact as part of a joined-up ecosystem, however, it’s important not to try and run before you can walk.
A centralised communications platform approach, bringing together people, processes and technology via a single controlled environment for customer communications, means change can happen one communication flow at a time, with a gradual migration so you can change the tyres while the car is still moving. With a more joined-up approach, customer journeys will be more like driving along a Roman road than navigating a path through Spaghetti Junction. Automation will ensure internal heavy lifting is limited, enabling businesses to focus on providing great experiences for their customers with a 360 degree view of operations.
