Four Strategies for a Superior, Cost-effective Customer Experience

8 Jul, 2009

By: Ryan Pellett

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Editor’s note:  Article originally appeared in the July 8, 2009 edition of CP Wire.  Research cited in the article is dated from a 2008 Convergys Scorecard Series, conducted by Gfk Roper and Convergys.

No one can predict the severity or duration of a tough economy, but we can measure the impact of poor service. Recent research shows that 40 percent of customers will leave without saying why – after only one bad experience. Companies are working hard to attract each others' customers, who have a great deal of information and choice. Simultaneously, products and services are either becoming increasingly commoditized, making it harder for companies to differentiate themselves based on their offerings, or becoming more complex, making it difficult for customers to find the differentiators.

The study also reveals that nearly nine out of 10 customers said they place "service" and "how they are treated" ahead of "brand" and "price." As the customer experience bar continues to rise, there are four strategies that companies should focus on to shape customer care in an uncertain economy.

1. Think "Outside In"
Develop a view based on the customer's perspective and experience, rather than focus on the company's products, processes and policies by:

• Analyzing customer behavior by event type to understand why they are calling, and how that fits into the customer experience life cycle.

• Analyzing customer behavior by segment to find, for example, how high-value customers use a speech application, or how younger-generation customers prefer to interact with the company. This provides a foundation for designing service, interactions, and channel strategies that are tailored to various customer segments.

• Analyzing customer behavior across channels to get a full view of the end-to-end customer experience. For example, it may show that customers are having difficulty updating information in a Web channel, and are turning to the more-expensive live-agent channel for service. In response, the speech application may be optimized to handle these requests and avoid use of costlier channels.

An effective outside-in view reveals a clearer, more accurate grasp of the customer experience – one based on a wide range of data, rather than a narrow slice of customer surveys and executive intuition. One company moved customer retention rates from 87 to 95 percent.

2. Drive Out Costs While Improving Customer Satisfaction
Automate routine customer-facing processes using new technologies to cut costs and free up employees to handle more sophisticated customer inquiries. The research has also shown that the desire to use automated channels has doubled since 2004, and 65 percent of the people would prefer to use self-service rather than speak to an agent who could not resolve the problem on first contact.

Integrated interfaces can provide the right balance between live agent and self-service by enabling agents and systems to work closely together to provide a tailored customer experience.

Incorporating analytics to monitor customer behavior in automated channels easily identifies problems and fine-tunes processes over time, supporting a superior customer experience.

3. Increase Revenue with Analytics-driven, Multichannel Sales Strategies
Use analytics to identify new customers and work more effectively with existing ones, targeting high-potential prospects. By analyzing a range of data, key customer segments and high-potential, high-value prospects are identified. Real-time predictive up-selling and cross-selling then goes beyond the traditional "cross-sell engine" to provide the right offer at the right time, based on the customer's specific situation and overall relationship with the company.

4. Strengthen Customer Retention and Loyalty through Proactive Outreach
Protect the customer base with well-planned retention efforts that give customers what they want, the first time. Finally, the research found customers place the highest value on knowledgeable employees and having their problems solved quickly – ideally, on the first call, so it's important to make sure that agents have the tools and information they need to serve customers with speed and precision. Here, companies can draw on knowledge-management systems, speech-based navigation of screens, and the use of intelligent routing to match customers with agents who are best-equipped to address their needs. In many cases, such proactive approaches can be automated. For example, if there is a security question on a credit card account, systems can automatically send messages to the customer via voice, email, or text message to notify him of the problem.

Ready for Better Times
With a balanced approach to using today's technology and agents, companies can rethink the traditional economics of customer care, and no longer have to view cost and service as an "either-or" proposition.