Do we take customers for granted?
According to a recent survey by Zendesk companies in Latin America who invested in Customer Experience were 6.5 times more resilient to the affects of the pandemic and 3 times more likely to grow their customer base. Their findings highlight what the best companies are doing to rise up their CX maturity scale. Regular training for service teams, ensuring the correct staffing levels, continuous improvement of processes, better response times, quick resolutions, and the availability of real-time data are all mentioned. It’s also revealing that 97% of responders agreed that their main goal was to make the customer experience more ‘conversational’. All of these actions had tangible benefits on both customer and employee retention, according to the survey.
But none of this should come as a surprise.
We’ve known for decades what ‘exceptional’ customer service looks and feels like, because we are all customers. So much so that we might believe we’ve been delivering it for our customers. But are we? As consumers we know what we want from our suppliers and we know what irritates us most. Not being able to speak to someone competent to resolve our issues is high up on the list. It continues to surprise me that organisations create CX systems that are predominantly for the benefit of the business and not for their customers’. You’re not creating a ‘conversational’ CX climate if you don’t have systems and people in place to allow customers to easily have those conversations. Technology can speed up resolution but it can also act as a barrier.
What’s interesting about this report is how it’s based on what company bosses think - not what customers think.
On top of the best practises revealed in the report we perhaps should make sure we regularly ask for feedback about our service from the people who matter most; Customers. And we shouldn’t just be asking what we are doing well but also what’s most important to them. Where do they want us to invest to make their experience better? What are we wasting money on because they don’t see the value? A customer relationship is no different from a personal relationship in that regard.
“You never listen to me anymore!”
How many times have your heard this between a couple you know or one you’ve overheard. We invest heavily at the start of a relationship to build trust, demonstrate commitment and offer value. We have to because we want them to engage with us. There is no history to fall back on and trust is fragile. At the beginning we make and keep promises, act attentively, shower the recipient with incentives and listen intently to what they have to say. But do we continue with this strategy once we’ve gained their commitment. Do we still listen to what they want and adapt accordingly, or do we take their continued support for granted? We should, of course, be investing more attention and time in our most important customers because losing them will have the biggest financial impact on our business.
The return on investment in CX can be harder to measure than for example investing in business development. Spending to gain new customers can be demonstrated more quickly than investing in something you already have as an insurance policy against losing it. However, the long term impact of poor investment in CX can be terminal. If you want to know where to invest to secure and grow your most valuable customers the advice from the report is relevant - but more important than that: Why don’t you ask them yourself.
If you’d like to discuss how to optimise CX in your business get in touch for an exploratory discussion. tonymoyle@in-sell.co.uk