However, one thing has become a clear trend in the wake of the pandemic (can we say wake yet?): assisted service has a distinctly digital path forward. The long-standing love/hate relationship with live chat seems to be in a love phase once again. Customers and service organizations are increasingly utilizing the channel, fueled by a desire amongst younger generations to communicate in non-voice mediums. Live chat as a stand-alone is, however, becoming rapidly obsolete, being replaced with messaging that supports a variety of digital communications. How humans connect has also changed, by the end of 2021 over 90 percent of the global internet population use a mobile device to go online according to Statista.

This move toward digital communication has put a feeling of disconnection in the relationship between brands and their customers at a time when they’re critical to growth objectives. This relationship is increasingly at risk as costs of switching brands continue to decline. So how can you keep connected with customers in this digital-first age?

If customer service is to transform from “necessary but unsightly cost-center” to “center stage in the company growth strategy” we must be willing to embrace digital-first connection and focus on creating continuous conversations which are driven by contextual data. In order to fulfill our potential as a growth lever, service leaders must harness these four approaches to deliver value to customers in the digital world:

1. Pursue a Human-Centric Technology Strategy

Technology has always existed to enable humans to achieve outcomes faster and easier. At some point, we diverged from this mission and many in the service industry sought to replace humans with technology. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the application of chatbots and virtual assistants. While these technologies hold immense potential to improve our organizations, that will be achieved through reduction of redundant and low-value tasks and enablement of better human-to-human connections. The next phase of improvements should begin from the inside-out, focusing investments on the agent experience and identifying the roadblocks that get in the way of your agents building or deepening relationships with your customers. Begin by observing agent workflows and noting when they’re focused on the screen/system/tab instead of the customer. For many customers, that interaction with your agent could be the only time they truly engage with your company, and you want your agent’s attention to be entirely on the customer.

2. Put Your Data into Action

It’s no secret that an experience which feels tailored to the customer’s needs is better. When companies are able to show customers that they understand their situation and educate them on the ROI of being a customer, not only is the experience lower effort but it’s also higher value to the customer (and company).

To create personalized experiences brands must be able to acknowledge past contacts, reference context on their relationship and recommend relevant next steps; in other words it needs to be driven by data. But even more importantly, customer data needs to be presented to agents in ways they can actually use. Information such as a timeline of recent contacts (with access to notes), the last few purchases and overall customer spend, must be embedded within your agent interface to be useful. But data should not just flow into customer conversations, each interaction presents an opportunity to learn insights which can be used well beyond customer service. Analysis of customer intents should lead other parts of the business to investigate root causes and make fixes. Changes in customer sentiment or perceived personal ROI should be used to create more effective Marketing messages. And customer frustrations with products or policies should lead to changes. When brands put their data into action, using insights to teach customers how to maximize the value they get from the products or services on offer, customer trust and confidence grows. When customers trust your brand, they stay longer, spend more and happily tell others about your brand, the trifecta of customer loyalty.

3. Create a Dialogue

In the digital-first world, service cannot be transactional, and customers do not appreciate when they’re treated as tickets (really, they never have). As new means of communication have been introduced into the market customers have tried, and will continue to try, each and every way of connecting with a company. Unfortunately, as new channels have been added, they’ve often been added as “bolt-ons” creating silos in both our customer and agent experiences. Customers using many different channels is not necessarily a bad thing, it only becomes a high-effort experience when it feels fractured, with customers frequently stopping and starting (over) on their journey to resolution. Leaders must embrace this journey and view their contacts as an ongoing dialogue, the simple back-and-forth which happens in any other type of relationship. Humans today communicate in fluid ways. Imagine texting a friend, getting to a point in the conversation where it just makes more sense to give them a call, but when you do, they have no idea what you were texting about. That’s often what it feels like to customers who need (for a multitude of reasons) to “pick resolution up” at a later time. Perhaps the issue required some investigation on your part. Or the customer had to go pickup their child from school during the middle of a chat conversation. Creating an ongoing conversation means that customers & agents must be able to flow between channels without losing a step. Taking a channel-agnostic view of your customers is a good start to avoiding siloed contacts. This will allow your organization agility in workflows and workforce – quickly able to meet shifting customer needs and transition conversations from one channel to another. Such an approach should also focus on easily adjustable customer flow builders, options for “same agent” routing and embedded contextual information to make conversations personal.

 4. Get Proactive!

Though customers may not be asking for you to reach out to them, they value proactive service when they get it. Proactive outreach puts the company in the driver’s seat, giving leaders control over the conversation and potential avenues to engage with customers. In line with approach #2 above, service leaders should be utilizing their customer data platform to identify opportunities to engage customers with service agents. The best use cases for proactive contact will not be surprising: solving problems customers are not yet aware of (or where they have not taken any action) and teaching customers to appreciate unused aspects of your products. In both cases, an initial digital outreach is the most logical first step. Leaders should have predefined, and measurable, actions which they would like to achieve through proactive contact. This should include both a company-preferred channel path which can be self-service, assisted or some combination of both. Company outreach should be triggered by some type of action, or inaction, by the customer. For example, you’re a meal-box delivery service, and begin noticing a spike in contacts about an ingredient in your latest box; let’s say it was an unfamiliar ingredient. Despite the spike in volume, it’s more likely that you’re not hearing from even half the customers experiencing this issue. Adding an automated email to “impacted” customers, with assurances on the ingredient, and a clear pathway for the customer to take action (such as a replacement ingredient) will build customer confidence, even if no action is taken.

While many customer service norms have changed in the transition to a digital-first world, one thing has remained constant. Great service is built on a foundation of clear communication, helpful humans, and easy resolution. Keeping these principles at the forefront of your strategy will help you to build long-lasting relationships with your customers, no matter what new technological advancements come next.

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Guest blog post written by Dixa. To learn more about this topic and others, visit our events page to check out upcoming events.

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The good news? A better way is on the horizon. It just requires making customer-centric decisions when it comes to channel deployments. Rather than focusing on a single channel, such as only text or only voice, brands should think about the power of deploying a few channels together with a cohesive strategy. This way, channels can work together to optimize the experience for a customer.

Technology has advanced, allowing us to use voice and text together in parallel or simultaneously (or even interchangeably) to make sure each type of customer transaction is handled through the path of least resistance. Channels cannot be treated as identical options for customers. Every channel has their own unique strengths and weaknesses, making them better suited for some transactions, time periods, and customers than other channel options. For example, filling out a form is best and fastest via text channels, but the intricate process of submitting an insurance claim could be best automated via voice. Ignoring, or negating the power and potential of text being used with voice is the antithesis of great CX. That’s because customers have spoken and it’s clear what they want. The ability to self-serve quickly, efficiently, and without any clunkiness is non-negotiable for customers.

The lasting pain of ineffectively deployed voice or text applications is enough to make customers ditch a channel after a single bad experience. In fact, the easiest way to master how to create a successful omnichannel deployment is to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Why do they default to voice for some transactions, but text channels for others? Understanding these nuances will make for productive interactions via voice, text, or a combination of both.

There is significant power in voice and text being leveraged together. Brands should look to unlock this potential to save customers time and frustration, reduce agent minutes, and get operationally more efficient. The new dawn of CX requires not just voice or text, but both options working in harmony together.

Guest post written by Interactions

To learn more about this and other critical CX topics, register for Execs In The Know’s recent Customer Response Summit and watch the Interactions-led Shop Talk Creating an Amazing Customer Experience Through AI and Human Assist Technology on-demand. To access all on-demand content, please register.

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In this post, we share the most valuable insights to arise from the session, including results from several poll questions that were presented as a part of the special session.

What is Omnichannel?

In setting up the conversation about omnichannel, it’s important to level-set on exactly what omnichannel is. Simply put, omnichannel is a continuously tracked and integrated brand experience, providing brand ambassadors (in this case, customer care agents) with context for each customer interaction, regardless of channel. Omnichannel tools and solutions provide agents with a continuous, seamless customer history, while also cultivating a consistent brand experience wherever and whenever a consumer interacts with a brand as a part of their customer journey. In other words, if a customer logs in to a customer care chat, the agent who takes that chat has a clear picture of past purchases, past interactions, and may even have Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered tools that can help predict needs and issues, potentially providing proactive solutions.

Omnichannel Metrics — What Matters Most

The session kicked off with Randy Bassett, General Manager, CX Operations Planning and Shared Service at DISH Network, sharing a comprehensive overview of DISH Network’s customer care journey map. One of the critical metrics Randy touched on in discussing DISH Network’s approach to omnichannel was Customer Experience Minutes (CXM). CXM can be defined as the total time a customer spends with any agent on any channel within a 7-day period. In essence, CXM combines three traditional metrics (Average Handle Time [AHT], Repeat Calls, and Call Transfers) into one powerful metric. Using CXM, an organization can track and understand the overall effort of its customers, especially when paired with customer effort scores derived from customer surveying. This is a critical measurement because now more than ever, consumers value their time and expect care solutions to be quick (and easy).

At the conclusion of Randy’s overview of DISH Network’s operations, session attendees were given an opportunity (via a poll) to share which key performance indicators (KPIs) they consider most important in understanding the multi- or omnichannel experience. Here are those results:

Clearly, multi- and omnichannel engagements continue to be dominated by traditional metrics, highlighting the importance of developing new CX KPIs, such as CXM. Although mainstays like Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and First Contact Resolution (FCR) remain prominent, matching newer indicators like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Effort Score (CES), its apparent that the industry will need to continue to develop new ways of examining new experiences.

From Key Measurements to Tackling New (and Existing) Challenges

Although the conversations started with KPIs, talk quickly swung toward challenges, something everyone in the session could relate to. The discussion opened with another poll question with the following results:

In addition to the challenges highlighted in the poll question, other challenges surfaced as a part of the discussion. These included:

• Data integration, particularly in the presence of legacy systems
• Finding unified measurements that work across channels
• Hiring and/or training agents that can both handle more complex issues, and operate across channels

Although there is no single silver bullet to address all these challenges, several key considerations were discussed during the session.

First and foremost, it was suggested that brands need to start by knowing their own customers — knowing their expectations, channel preferences, and appetite for adopting new solutions and technologies. Can customers do the things they want to do on all the various channels offered? Are their most preferred channels even available?

Second, brands need to seek to understand not only the customer experience but also the agent experience. What are the top agent pain points? What does agent effort look like? Do the tools and technologies work as they should, especially considering many operations have been moved from office to home?

Third, it’s important not to restrict performance comparisons to a brand’s immediate competitive space. In other words, don’t just look at what the competition is doing. Instead, look closely at what the best CX brands are doing across all industries because at the end of the day, that’s what consumers are doing. They are not segmenting by industry but are instead constructing their expectations from what they are experiencing wherever they are doing business.

To capitalize on that last point, an additional poll question was put forth by one of the participants in the session.

The question was this:

Which is more important?

A) Being available in any channel the customer wants to engage in

B) Present a recommended channel for each issue type based on past performance

Option “A” was selected by a margin of 3-to-1, emphasizing the fact that choice is now the gold standard. It’s not enough to direct a customer to what works. Instead, brands must let the customer choose, while simultaneously making sure everything works. This is part and parcel of competing not only with the competition but with the best across all businesses.

Undoubtedly, there are some tough acts to follow in the world of CX, but it’s a necessary path to achieving a true omnichannel experience.

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Are you a CX leader looking to learn from your peers, as well as top industry experts? We invite you to visit our Events Page to learn more and consider joining us for our next featured event, Virtual Customer Response Summit October, which will even include a keynote session from DISH Network’s Randy Bassett, featured in this blog. Or, if you’d like to be considered for inclusion in a future Executive Virtual Roundtable session, please reach out to Chad McDaniel.

Interested in sponsoring your own Executive Virtual Roundtable or other special activity? Visit our Supplier Engagement portal to learn how you can get involved in the Execs In The Know community.

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As discussed in this blog article which featured chatbots, self-service technology (SST) implementation and expansion initiatives are top of mind for many customer experience (CX) leaders. This was true even before 2020 when our industry was rocked by the impact of COVID-19, and these efforts have only accelerated into 2021. The world transitioned virtually overnight, and providing customers with the ability to find answers themselves was more essential than ever before. And also now more than ever before, consumers expect quick, accessible, accurate, and personalized solutions to their issues. We see evidence of this in our own research, the CXMB Series 2020 Consumer Edition report, where 75% of consumers attempted to use SSTs to resolve an issue, compared to only 43% in 2019. Furthermore, of those who attempted to use an SST, more turned to the company’s own websites for their answers (versus external websites or sources).

Customer portals and customer-facing knowledgebases via organizations’ websites are critical to meeting these consumer demands, which is the focus of this article. These solutions are not “new” SSTs, but many organizations recognize the need to expand the sophistication and capabilities to meet consumers where they are today.

We will provide an overview of customer portals, current statistics and trends, and characteristics of successful customer portals so you can ensure your own strategies are set up for success.

WHAT ARE CUSTOMER PORTALS?

Simply put, a customer portal is a dedicated and personal space on your organization’s website which allows consumers the ability to interact with your business, access valuable resources, manage their relationship with your company, and even contribute to your user community. It integrates your organizations’ self-service capabilities into a single hub, empowering your customers to resolve their issues effectively and accurately or access the information they need, bypassing human-assisted support. This is not to say those customer portals should act as replacements for live assistance, but rather an available option for the types of inquiries well-suited for self-service.

Portals offer information and solutions across a wide spectrum of sophistication from general FAQs, articles, and videos, to the ability to manage your business and account. In many cases, portals also act as an interactive hub, much like our own KIA Community.

CUSTOMER PORTAL STANDOUT CRITERIA

Driving customer engagement, boosting issue resolution, reducing costs, minimizing customer effort, and improving the overall CX is ultimately what an effective customer portal should deliver. To accomplish this, the following should be front and center as you develop your customer portal strategy:

• Understand this is not a “one and done” initiative – Your products and services change and your customers’ needs evolve. So, the contents and functionality of your customer portal should also evolve. Therefore, your infrastructure, technology, and resources must be in place to ensure it remains current, relevant, and useful.
• Know your customers and their journeys – Prioritize the content and navigation in your portals based on a solid grasp of your customers’ journeys, their most frequently asked questions, their pain points, and most common issues that can be resolved through the portal. It is easy to try to “boil the ocean,” but if you know your customers and their journeys, you will more effectively deliver on their expectations. This means frequently asking your customers what they need and monitoring their portal use, questions, and searches.
• Ensure ease of use and varied content types – Simply put, avoid the temptation to “over-engineer” your portal and customer knowledgebase. Information, resources, and solutions should be organized, easy to find, and intuitive. Users learn and consume information differently, so the more varied your content, the better. For visual learners, accessing content in the form of videos, diagrams, and illustrations is not only more visually appealing, but can be more intuitive too.
• Consistently update content – Many portals fail because the data and information become obsolete quickly. A customer will not give you many chances, so if the portal is difficult to use or outdated, the customer will likely not try again and will instead bypass the portal, opting instead to use a live channel.
• Serve up information proactively – Use technology and data to predict customers’ needs before they even ask or search. Based on their search criteria, push relevant content to them through the portal or even through other channels. For example, use their history to understand what they need and send an email or a chat with the resources they would find useful.
• Optimize for mobile, tablet, and desktop – It goes without saying that a portal should be optimized for use on any device. A large percentage of customers will access portals via a mobile application, or they will access your company’s website via their phone. The portal must be just as easy to use via those devices as on a laptop or desktop.
• Redirect to the right channel if needed – Most importantly, you need to ensure that issues and questions that cannot be handled via self-service or the portal are redirected to the channels best suited to resolve the issue. It should not be difficult for the customer to opt-out to a live channel or be automatically redirected to the most appropriate channel.
• Improve external search and site navigation – As addressed in this article, two common failure points in SST use are external search and site navigation. Often, companies focus on developing the content and resources, which is important, but external search is important to address as well. For example, consider changing what appears in a search engine when a customer searches your company’s customer support information – instead of immediately displaying a phone number, offer up other support options. Second, it goes without saying that a company’s site navigation plays a big role in the use of a customer portal. The portal and self-service options must be easy to find.

THE FUTURE OF CUSTOMER PORTALS

It is no secret that artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in CX journeys. This holds true for customer portals as well, as organizations begin to integrate AI-enabled chatbots inside their customer portals. AI-chatbots that are equipped with machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) get smarter with every interaction, which not only gets answers into customers’ hands faster, but can also determine the customer’s intent, providing more proactive resolution via the portal.

Providing easy and quick resolution is just one benefit to customer portals. Data gathered from customer portal use can be of incredible benefit to all parts of the business. Self-service tools utilized for building out knowledgebases and portals that integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) systems and existing websites can provide insights for marketing, product development and planning, and general customer sentiment.

Most organizations have some sort of a customer-facing knowledgebase or portal on their websites. However, many companies are finding that it became a secondary thought once it was developed. Delivering on customer expectations and their desire to self-serve is an opportunity for companies to increase engagement and loyalty if customer portals are designed and executed effectively. You will find that you not only improve resolution and efficiency, but you will boost traffic to your website and gain credibility among your customers as a trusted source.

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Although the discussion was wide-ranging, it often turned tactical — focusing on the various changes deployed by the different participating brands since the onset of the pandemic. Many of these changes were brought about to maintain an acceptable level of CX in a time of great challenge and uncertainty. In this post, we spotlight just a few of the changes shared, building context around those changes by highlighting the various benefits and considerations — both for businesses and their customers.

Increased Automation and Greater Reliance on Self-Service

Automation has been on the industry’s radar for a long, long time. But the events of the past year have sped up the timeline of adoption at many organizations. In the early stages of the pandemic, lots of organizations were forced to cut staff, regardless of whether contact volumes were rising or falling. Automation rode to the rescue, acting as a release valve for frontline resources now stretched thin, while scrambling to overcome the new challenges posed by shifting entire operations to working from home.

Many companies used the crisis of the pandemic to show some love to their legacy self-service systems, things like FAQs, Help Centers, and customer-facing knowledge databases. The intent was not only to try and bring down the volumes hitting live channels, but also make information more readily available to customers. The idea is simple enough — by improving access to information, less customer effort would be required to resolve an issue, and retention rates would rise. Of course, this all depends on coming up with simple and effective solutions that customers are willing to use.

Customer Benefit(s):

• • Increased service availability, especially for transactional-type engagements
  • Greater channel options

Business Benefit(s):

• • Lower cost-per-contact
  • Ability to handle more volume with less staff
  • Improved CSAT and CX

Considerations:

Because automated and self-service solutions excel at handling “the easy stuff,” what’s often left over are the more complicated issues. This may call for additional training for agents and managers. It also means Average Handle Time (AHT) is likely to increase, while Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Resolution Rates, and productivity may fall. It should also be noted that some of these shifts are much more adaptable and effective when handling business-to-consumer versus business-to-business engagements. In other words, the type of customer, and types of transactions to be handled, are definitely key considerations.

Become a Better Partner with the Product and Marketing Teams

A lot of “one-and-done” and UX- or process-related customer care issues can be headed off at the pass when internal teams are lockstep and mutually informed on new initiatives. By establishing a closer working relationship with their Product and Marketing Team counterparts, CX leaders can better predict what’s coming, while also having an opportunity to head off contact volume spikes for simple things that easily overlooked when internal visibility is obscured. Things like launches, software updates, product changes, and promotions can create contact volume surprises that are tough (if not impossible) to forecast without the right level of internal transparency and communication.

Customer Benefit(s):

• • Avoidable customer issues, and getting caught up in volume spikes
  • Get a better ownership experience

Business Benefit(s):

• • Avoid costly volume spikes
  • Increase the visibility of company initiatives
  • Promote cultural alignment with the organization
  • Improved CSAT and CX

Considerations:

Building stronger relationships between internal teams is a great way to promote consistency of experience across the organization, something consumers value greatly. A closer working relationship between groups also improves outcomes (for the business and its customers) and increases the successes of other multigroup projects — things like policy reviews and product launches.

Developing the Business Value of Customer Service

The days of old where contact centers were viewed strictly as cost centers are long gone. More and more, CX leaders are talking about Return on Investment (ROI) and revenue generation, as well as the standard talk of CSAT, dissatisfaction (DSAT), loyalty, etc. CX leaders can also take greater business value in their operations beyond up-selling and cross-selling. The contact center is home to a wealth of information, particularly when it comes to Voice of the Customer insights. With the rights tools in place, customer experience data can provide valuable data about what customers like and don’t like, what they want, and what triggers loyalty. All of this information can become incredibly actionable if properly compiled, analyzed, and disseminated.

Customer Benefit(s):

• • Easier entry into the purchase funnel
  • Development of new products and service based on consumer input

Business Benefit(s):

• • Increased revenue
  • Increased customer loyalty
  • Gain a pipeline of insights and ideas for new offerings

Considerations:

Sales takes a particular set of skills, and these skills might not also be organically found in the contact center. For organizations that are serious about viewing every contact as a selling opportunity, specialized training is pretty much a given. Leaders should also make sure agents have all the tools and information they need to create a valuable, positive (even personalized) experience for the customers. In other words, selling in the contact center should first and foremost be about creating a better experience, with the increased revenue acting as the icing on the cake.

Placing Greater Emphasis on Metrics that are Core or Core Metrics to the Customer and the Experience

As the industry’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) continue to evolve, it’s important to understand which indicators matter most to customers. Things like CSAT/DSAT are helpful, but they really measure a moment in time as opposed to the performance of an operation. On the other hand, things like customer effort, NPS, and retention rates are broader measurements that describe how customers experience a process, policy, or particular journey. This also applies to what’s being measured and monitored as a part of a Quality Assurance program. When brands understand what matters most to their customer, and then manage performance against those things, opportunities for improvement become more clear.

Customer Benefit(s):

• • Improved experience based on customer-centric focus
  • Increased retention and loyalty

Business Benefit(s):

• • Repositions time, energy, and resources for the best return
  • Provides a clear roadmap for improving the experience

Considerations:

Along with looking at the right, customer-centric indicators, organizations should also take a close look at the journey itself. Is the journey simple, sensible, quick, and without inefficiencies? Are there common breakdowns or easily resolvable pain points? Understanding the journey from the customer’s perspective is a great way to reassess which metrics are worth prioritizing.

Like so much in CX, whether a major change or minor initiative, everything needs to start with the customer … who they are … what they want … what they need. Time and again, the roundtable conversation was joined by the phrase, “Meet your customer where they are.” This has never been truer. So whether changes are big or small, forced by necessity or a desire to do right by the customer, brands can only improve retention and build greater lifetime value by starting with the customer at the center of everything they do.

Special thanks to ibex’s John Kusak and Emmanuelle Skala from Toast for moderating this special Virtual Executive Roundtable, Driving Customer Retention & Lifetime Value While Experiencing Hyper Growth.

If you are a senior leader running CX operations on the corporate side and would like to engage your peers in a private, online community, we invite you to join our KIA online community. You can also find out about everything happening within the Execs In The Know community by joining our mailing list.

Likewise, if you are a solutions or service provider and would like to lead a future Executive Roundtable or get involved with the Execs In The Know community in other ways, you can reach out to us at info@execsintheknow.com.

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How did our organizations and our people perform in 2020?

In 2020, the CX industry (let alone the world as a whole) faced societal and economic changes unlike anything seen before. From where we work to where we go, from how we shop to how we school our children, the global pandemic has meant dynamic and seismic change in the daily lives of everyone. But, as one participant (inspired by the words of his leadership) put it, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” For the most part, brands didn’t. In fact, several of the brands on the call made mention of how, in many instances, the pandemic acted as an accelerant in igniting many transformative initiatives. Necessity, ever the mother of all invention, was often the primary driver of these changes. Many of them had to do with the shift to WFH, while still others were propelled by changes in consumer behavior.

At the same time, many companies used the crisis as an opportunity to gain buy-in on bulking up and fast-tracking existing transformational initiatives, particularly digital ones. Once again, necessity has been a driving force. Surges in volume, labor market challenges, difficulty in recruiting, onboarding, and training new hires — all of these have played a role in the swift pivot to new and revamped self-service solutions. The end result is an industry-wide surge forward in the digitalization of the CX industry, even to the point of making omnichannel more commonplace.

Most leaders also agreed that their people, up and down the ladder, performed exceptionally well, especially given the difficulty and extent of the challenges faced. In fact, many of the discussion’s participants talked about initiatives and changes that would have taken months or years to complete, if not for being fueled by the demands of the pandemic. These changes were completed not only in record time but also under the unique personal and professional stresses brought on by the global health crisis.

How do we keep the successes going in 2021?

While there’s no simple answer to keeping the hard-fought successes of 2020 rolling in 2021, a few familiar themes emerged. Empathy was a word and concept that came up several times, particularly in the context of comprehending the situation in which many workers find themselves. Many of these frontline workers might not have opted for such work had they known their home would be their office. Many were caught ill-prepared in terms of having adequate space or resources to conduct their role at home. And while most of these initial challenges have been resolved, new challenges continue to emerge. Uncertainty about the future, an endless cycle of shutdowns and changing restrictions, feelings of isolation as the pandemic drags on — these and other concerns call for organizations to be much more tuned into the stressors faced by the industry’s agent population. Bringing empathy to this understanding is seen to be crucial in maintaining trust, momentum, morale within organizations — all critical to ongoing success.

Flexibility is also expected to be a key concept as the year wears on — specifically, flexibility with future workspace arrangements. Coming out of the pandemic, most workers are hopeful to have the option to either WFH or the office, depending on their own specific situation. Of course, certain types of engagement will necessitate some return to the office, but now that many workers have had experience with the advantages of WFH, it’s an arrangement some absolutely prefer, or at least prefer as a part of a flexible, hybrid approach.

Continuing C-suite support is also crucial to maintaining success in 2021. Unsurprisingly, executives provided an abundance of support and resources to help their teams conquer the initial challenges posed by the pandemic. But as we all move deeper into the year, the leaders on the call agreed that ongoing executive support would be essential in seeing through the initiatives launched in 2020, as well as those coming down the pike in 2021.

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Special thanks to Arise’s Robert Padron and Charmaine Stafford for moderating this special Virtual Executive Roundtable, Be Essential: How WFH CX Transforms the Relationship Between the Brand and the Customer.

If you are a senior leader running CX operations on the corporate side and would like to engage your peers in a private, online community, we invite you to join our KIA online community. You can also find out about everything happening within the Execs In The Know community by joining our mailing list.

Likewise, if you are a solution or service provider and would like to lead a future Executive Roundtable or get involved with the Execs In The Know community in other ways, you can reach out to us at info@execsintheknow.com.

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When done well, digital channels can deliver an amazing amount of value for both consumers and brands. But with the pace of change in 2020 and a host of competing priorities, many challenges still exist for digital channels. This is true even for companies that have been utilizing digital channels for years. Ultimately, many of these challenges can be headed off by focusing on two things:

1) Creating a seamless experience as customers traverse across channels

2) Delivering a high degree of service parity

Creating a Seamless Experience

Although many brands offer a variety of channels (including digital), few CX leaders would agree that their channels are well integrated, let alone able to offer customers a seamless experience. The reasons why are multifaceted. Legacy systems, differing priorities, long lead times on transformational initiatives, system and organizational complexity … these and other factors all play a role in creating and maintaining silos and disjointed journeys. Successful integration often hinges on an organization’s weakest link — be it a technology, distribution of resources and focus, or process design.

Here are some critical things to consider when working toward creating a seamless experience:

Aligning Strategies — Companies need to take a close look at not only their digital strategy, but also their engagement strategy. How do the two mesh? Is there close alignment across different channels (digital or otherwise), and across the organization as a whole? If a company strives for a seamless experience, one that is conducive to a multichannel (or even omnichannel) experience, strategic alignment is an essential starting point.

Focusing on the Pain Points — No matter how carefully designed and considered, virtually every journey has room for improvement. When identifying pain points, start with the customer’s perspective. Utilize voice of the customer data to draw out the most common pain points, as well as those that most significantly impact the overall experience. Take a closer look at things like channel functionality/capability, ease of use, and a channel’s capacity to resolve. Often times resolving pain points is an effective way of tackling many of the same obstacles that stand in the way of a seamless cross-channel experience.

Identifying Limitations — Different parts of an organization move at different speeds, technical limitations do exist, and the struggle is real when it comes to legacy systems. Though they play a significant role in undermining a seamless customer experience, these issues aren’t likely to resolve themselves any time soon. Although organizations might have the best intentions when it comes to addressing these challenges, it’s a process that requires a tremendous amount of time and attention. When deploying new initiatives, start by understanding the challenges posed by existing systems and processes. This will improve the chances of avoiding further disconnects, while also identifying which pieces of the organization need change into order to enable future progress in transform the customer experience.

Delivering Service Parity

Consumers don’t engage with channels — they engage with brands. Whether on a live chat, a phone call, or a messaging app, customers expect a consistent experience from the way they are treated to the information they receive. Moreover, in the minds of consumers every experience (regardless of channel) is reflective of a brand, not a specific group or department within a brand. In other words, the only way for a brand to get good at providing an amazing overall customer experience is for them to get good at providing an amazing experience at each and every touchpoint. This is what service parity is all about.

As organizations look to hone their service parity, here are a few important points worth consideration:

Assume Every Journey is a Multichannel Journey — These days, channel hopping in an attempt to resolve a specific issue is practically universal among consumers. This has happened not only as a result of consumers seeking greater convenience, but also out of necessity since not all channels are created equal. Once an organization assumes every journey is a multichannel journey, the importance of consistency becomes apparent. Ideally, a rising tide lifts all boats. Improving service parity should mean enhanced functionality. Not every organization can (or wants) to achieve an end goal of being able to resolve every issue type in every channel offered. But it’s a great starting point for orienting around customer expectations.

Deflect Away from a Focus on Cost — By offering a unique combination of convenience and reliability, digital channels are a great option for many types of engagements. It’s hard to appreciate and execute against this when digital channels are pigeonholed as either a cost-saving measure, or a means of deflection. Digital channels are becoming more ubiquitous by the day, and by now organizations should perceive digital channels as a means to enhancing and improving the overall journey. In doing so, organizations will be able to focus on how and why digital channels are good for their customers, which is bound to have a positive impact on how they are designed, developed, and deployed.

Rallying Around a Better Experience — Silos exist for a reason. Organizational alignment is a tough nut to crack. But the good news is there’s no better time than now start the difficult process of greater alignment. Often this means making changes, taking on risk, and tackling complexity. But if 2020 taught us all one thing, it’s that no challenge is too great, and we can often accomplish the impossible if pressed to do so. So as long as an organization makes the customer and their experience the true North Star, there is a clear rally point and definitive path forward.

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Special thanks to Nuance’s Shelbi Scott and Abhay Prasad for moderating this special Virtual Executive Roundtable, Transforming Digital Into Your Customer’s Channel of Choice. If you are a senior leader running CX operations on the corporate side and would like to participate in a future Executive Roundtable, please contact Chad McDaniel at chad@execsintheknow.com.

Likewise, if you are on the provider side and would like to lead a future Executive Roundtable, you can also contact Chad at the email address above.

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