Customer Experience – Untold Truths
CX is a little like Branding or Marketing. It feels like mostly common sense, and many folks intuitively think that there’s not a whole lot to it – any one (including themselves) can do it! The reality, however, is quite different.
Here are a few untold truths that I have recently shared through some collaborative articles on LinkedIn, that will give you a sense of what’s involved.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial for monitoring and improving CX, and can serve as a compass to guide decision-making. Typically, CX KPIs track Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and Customer Effort Scores (CES), among others.
But it’s not enough to merely track these indicators and present it to Management every quarter. The real work begins once the data starts pouring in! It helps to benchmark against industry data and keep an eye on evolving trends. But it is even more critical to work on the insights that emerge to close the loop.
As much as Customer Service leaders think that scripting every response is the only way to do the job, sometimes you need to acknowledge that your given script does not offer the solution needed.
What customers need – more than anything else – is for someone to understand them and acknowledge the problem. That’s half the battle! The other half is to attempt to resolve the problem by doing whatever it takes, including coordinating between multiple internal stakeholders and getting to the root of it.
On Fostering Strong Relationships …
The key is Relevance. Your customers will be willing to work with you, read your emails, listen to your sales pitch, and may even forgive a few errors, if what you have to offer is of relevance to them.
To that end, it is imperative that you do your homework, understand your audience, and offer them a product / service / solution that is worth their time.
And finally, On Closing the Loop …
As a CX Leader it is your job to create an environment where it is safe to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them. At times, that may also mean influencing the culture of the larger organization, which may be at odds with this approach.
Good CX leaders focus on ‘What can we learn from this?’ instead of ‘Who can we blame?’, and then, attempt to deploy those learnings in their future initiatives.