In compiling this year’s report, the research team surveyed CX leaders at more than 160 organizations from around the globe, constituting the largest research cohort since the CXMB Series first launched in 2012. Survey participants were asked roughly 120 questions in the areas of operational best practices and strategic objectives, producing a wealth of industry-related insights, including these highlights:

• 50% of respondents indicated they undertook a fast-tracking of strategic objectives as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic

• 62% of respondents indicated they would not revert to pre-pandemic staffing models, even after things return to “normal”

• 55% of respondents felt the performance of remotely trained agents was comparable to in-center trained agents, whereas 9% thought performance was better, and 29% thought performance was worse

• 82% of respondents believe they have a good understanding of which channels their customers prefer to use (up from 57% in 2019)

“To say the past year has presented our community with unique challenges and opportunities is a significant understatement,” said Chad McDaniel, President and Co-Founder of Execs In The Know. “The release of the CXMB Series 2020 Corporate Edition report is a valuable step in unpacking and understanding how our community responded to a very challenging and thought-provoking year. We are deeply appreciative to every brand and individual that participated in this year’s survey, and we are grateful to be in a position to present this research to the industry.”

The 2020 Corporate Edition report is one half of the CXMB Series, a bi-annual research project that includes both consumer and corporate perspectives, each in their respective editions. The CXMB Series is produced as a result of a research partnership between Execs In The Know and COPC Inc. and has been published on an ongoing basis since 2012. You can learn more about the CXMB Series, and download previous volumes at no cost, by visiting the Execs In The Know CXMB Series page.

This year’s Corporate Edition report was released during CustomerCONNECT, February 23–24, 2021. CustomerCONNECT is an innovative, fully virtual event designed to bring together the world’s foremost customer experience executives for an extraordinary opportunity to learn, share, network, and engage to innovate for an improved customer experience. For those who missed the live broadcast of CustomerCONNECT, the entire event is currently available on-demand. To gain access to this on-demand content, simply register here.

Are you a CX executive leading care operations at a top brand? Consider becoming a part of Execs In The Know’s prestigious community of customer experience leaders where you can discuss insights such as those found in the CXMB Series, and networking with fellow CX leaders. To learn more about Execs In The Know’s “Know It All” (KIA) Online Community, visit the community site.

About Execs In The Know

Execs In The Know brings together customer experience (CX) leaders from across industries in an effort to advance the conversation and set a new agenda for delivering amazing experiences for consumers. As a global community of the brightest minds in CX, Execs In The Know provides opportunities to learn, share, network, and engage to innovate. Operating under the motto of “Leaders Learning From Leaders,” Execs In The Know facilitates many opportunities for community engagement, such as their bi-annual national event, Customer Response Summit, virtual CX series, CustomerCONNECT, and private, online community, Know It All. There are also exclusive, laser-focused engagements like industry briefings, virtual luncheons, and executive roundtables. Execs In The Know also guides and informs the industry with a rich tapestry of CX-related content that includes CX Insight magazine, CXMB Series research, webinars, podcasts, blogs, and much more.

The post Execs In The Know & COPC Inc. Partner to Release the CXMB Series 2020 Corporate Edition Report appeared first on Execs In The Know.

By delivering an effective customer experience, a company can improve retention (and long-term revenue) and even attract new customers. However, improving the customer experience requires knowledge, not only about your company’s internal processes and plans, but also about the needs and demands of your customers.

To learn more about the customer experience and how it can be improved through the use of speech analytics, download our white paper, The CX Pro’s Guide to Speech Analytics.

Read on to learn how we define customer experience and how your organization can optimize the experience of its own customers:

Today’s Definition of Customer Experience

Customer experience can be summarized as the overall perception an individual has of your company after having interacted with it. A good customer experience carries positive implications, such as an uncomplicated series of interactions and high-quality products or services.

When your customer experience trends south, it can signal a drop in service quality, failure to recognize pain points your customers are experiencing, and more. Issues that may otherwise go unnoticed can make a serious dent in a customer’s perception of your brand, causing them to choose competitors instead.

Losing customers is costly and can quickly rob an organization of vital revenue. This is what makes understanding, analyzing, and improving customer experience critical to long-term growth.

Customer Experience Strategies

Having a strong customer experience strategy is simply a practical approach to maintaining an optimal customer experience across every part of your company.

In your customer experience strategy, you should carefully consider each of the following facets of your business:

Product and/or Service Design

By designing products and services to benefit the customer from the start, you can create a much stronger offering and positively impact the customer experience across the board.

A simple way to improve products and services as they are developed is to make and use detailed customer profiles or “buyer personas.” These personas should be specific and provide an accurate foundation upon which you can build out your company’s offerings.

By basing design choices on such buyer personas, you can make important decisions about what matters most and what details can be left out. The most important step in using customer profiles is to work with real data to define their traits more accurately. Personas made up on the spot are far more likely to get the important parts wrong and wreck your actual users’ experience down the line.

Omnichannel Customer Service

Where you interact with your customers and how you do so can completely change their perception of your brand. With the rapid adoption of new forms of communication online, it is more important than ever for businesses to make use of the mediums most of their customers prefer to be served in.

Convenience is a defining factor for a positive omnichannel customer experience. If your company can meet its customers where they are online or offline, then it stands a much better chance of satisfying their needs and earning their loyalty.

Surveying Customers

The importance of understanding your customers and their needs is hard to overstate, yet there is no single most-effective route to take to learn more about the people you serve. Many companies have come up with their own approaches to surveying their customers and proven there are numerous paths worth taking. More important than your surveying strategy are the positive results it can produce.

In the case of companies like Virgin Mobile, whose online customer diaries initiative helped them steer clear of what would have been a disastrous service-structuring decision, the surveying method used was far less important than the questions they chose to ask their customers.

When asking your own customers about their experiences with your brand, it is important to ask the right questions – ideally these should tie in directly to your current development plans. Instead of asking how customers rate their experience overall, aim for more specific issues and refine your timing to catch customers when their most recent experiences with your company are still fresh.

Tips to Improve the Customer Experience

If you aim to optimize the customer experience within your organization, the following tips should prove helpful:

• Measure as much as you can. Measuring KPIs of all types can keep you in the loop on lapses in performance and shifting consumer trends before they make dangerous waves in your organization.
• Align products/services with your brand image. When your products fail to match up with customer expectations, they could turn to competitors, leaving you with lost revenue. By keeping your company’s actions in line with its values and brand image, you can keep customers’ confidence more consistently.
• Map out the customer journey. Taking time to map out the path customers take in interacting with your company can provide key insight into their overall experience and potential bottlenecks they regularly encounter.

Improving customer experience should be a top priority for every organization; it’s crucial for maintaining a competitive edge in today’s highly competitive markets. By adopting new initiatives that positively impact the customer experience, you’ll boost customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

How does your company cultivate a positive customer experience?

Guest post written by: Brian LaRoche, Marketing Director, CallMiner

To learn more about this topic, join Brian for his CustomerCONNECT session, “Leveraging Emotion to Improve CX & Elevate Contact Center Performance,” on February 24, 2021 at 10:15 AM PST / 1:15 PM EST.

To attend, please register now for CustomerCONNECT.

The post Tips & Strategies for Improving the Customer Experience appeared first on Execs In The Know.

Having a team of skilled recruiters with the right experience and knowledge is important, but they’re only a piece of the puzzle. In today’s modern BPO, you need to use tools and technology to recruit at scale. With the right tools in place, recruiters make better decisions by combining science, experience, and intuition. I’ve seen how a smoother recruitment process led by an empowered recruitment team improves interactions with potential new hires, and excites top talent. Things run more smoothly, people feel more comfortable, relationships form, and we make better decisions, ultimately putting the client’s mind at ease when it comes time to ramp up.

Technology in Action: Recruiting

Here’s an example from one experience we had with a large U.S. telecommunications company. When they came to us, the company was having a difficult time finding top work-at-home (WAH) sales talent. They wanted to scale their operations and develop a solid outsourcing team that could increase revenue.

The first thing we did was to work with the client on developing a candidate profile through an online talent optimization tool. Combining our team’s expertise with the client’s learnings, we created a profile that matched the strengths and aptitudes of top-performing agents. This profile acted as the benchmark for recruiting new agents who, as part of their application process, were asked to complete a behavioral assessment survey using the same talent optimization tool. Those applicants, whose behaviors and motivations matched those of our profile, were easily identified. We then used the results, along with other traditional and non-traditional recruitment tactics, to zero in on “best fit” candidates.

The selection process was only the beginning. After onboarding the agents, we gave plenty of support to the new hires, including side-by-side live call monitoring, developmental coaching sessions, calibrated self-review call monitoring, daily huddles with progression paths, and gap analyses. Of course, we used a mix of technology and human intervention in the process. We even used gamification to engage the agents’ competitive natures, which was further supported through a competitive bonus structure.

All in all, digging deep into the process to collaboratively enhance the clients’ selection approach and build out their sales force was exciting. Their new hire proficiency time was cut in half. We grew their sales team from 40 agents to 140 in just one year, resulting in a 130% increase in monthly sales.  Customer satisfaction also improved by 10% over the year. Most importantly, our partnership grew fast and has sustained even through COVID, allowing us to work closely together and pivot as needed. For me, this is the true measure of success. When you can establish a trusted, synergistic, and enjoyable relationship on top of surpassing KPIs, then you’ve set yourself, your client, and your team up for success. With open communication and idea sharing, creative problem-solving, and mutual accessibility, you are poised to take advantage of future opportunities and growth together.

Guest post written by: Yoni Epstein, CEO and Founding Chairman, itelbpo

To learn more about this topic, join Yoni for his CustomerCONNECT session, “Using Technology to Improve Relationships Between Team Members and Clients,” on February 24, 2021 at 9:15 am PST / 12:15 PM EST.

To attend, please register now for CustomerCONNECT.

The post How Technology Can Increase Sales and Build Relationships appeared first on Execs In The Know.

First launched in August 2020, CustomerCONNECT returns February 23–24, 2021 with an agenda featuring keynote and thought leadership sessions focused on the interplay between three essential CX pillars: People, Process, and Technology. With plenty of opportunities for CX leaders to interact and connect, all are invited to attend this highly engaging, totally free event to get an in-depth view of how CX leaders are innovating in these key areas. Registration provides access to a full slate of interactive presentations, live Q&A with CX thought leaders, virtual networking activities, and much, much more with both days kicking off at 11:15 AM ET and running until 3:45 PM ET.

In addition to CustomerCONNECT, Execs In The Know is also pleased to announce several other events throughout 2021, including a planned return to live events in the latter half of the year. Upcoming live events will feature a hybrid approach with both in-person and digital broadcast elements, providing the EITK community with new and exciting ways to attend and participate in live events.

Execs In The Know 2021 events include:

Exclusive Industry Briefings
• March 11 (Virtual)
• June 10 (Virtual)
• December 9 (Live)

Customer Response Summits
• April 26–28 (Virtual)
• September 15–17 (Live from Coronado, CA with digital broadcast elements)

In addition to these events, Execs In The Know also hosts a variety of webinars on the industry’s hottest topics, virtual executive roundtables, podcasts, and other industry-shaping events throughout the year.

“We’re pleased to be able to continue to bring such rich content to our valued community,” said Chad McDaniel, President and Co-Founder of Execs In The Know. “We truly miss seeing everyone in person, but we continue to keep CX innovation and engagement alive through carefully crafted virtual events that enable us to maintain the networking and engagement component so greatly valued by our community. Although our virtual events have been very well received, we’re excited and optimistic about our plans for getting back to live events in the second half of the year.”

CustomerCONNECT is fast approaching, and it’s an event not to be missed by anyone connected to the CX industry. Early registration is highly recommended, and Execs In the Know encourages anyone interested in this event to keep tabs on the CustomerCONNECT event page as the organization continues to add new session details to the agenda in the lead up to the event.

Along with serving its community of corporate executives, Execs In The Know also provides a variety of exciting opportunities for vendor partners to get involved. For those interested in getting involved in CustomerCONNECT or in Execs In The Know’s wider community of CX leaders and innovators, please view the company’s 2021 Sponsorship Kit or contact sales at info@execsintheknow.com.

About Execs In The Know

Execs In The Know is a global community of customer experience (CX) professionals focused on excellence in customer experience. Execs In The Know gives brands a platform to share and gain insights, benchmark their brand, stay on top of the latest trends in CX, and create lasting relationships with their peers – “Leaders Learning From Leaders.” Execs In The Know holds numerous live events each year including Customer Response Summit, Subject Matter Briefings, Lunch & Learns, and Leadership Dinners. They also offer industry content and thought leadership through their webinars, reports, Know It All online community, and various other social media groups. To learn more about Execs In The Know visit: https://execsintheknow.com/

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