Here are nuggets of CX wisdom from the recently concluded panel discussion on “Delighting Across the Digital Experience (DX)” at the Customer Response Summit (CRS) held from March 1-3, 2023, in Austin, Texas. Key CX leaders included Carlos Castano (Microsoft), Bit Rambusch (Philips), and Monte Tomasino (Dell Technologies).

Top executives shared views and reflections from their experiences. Discussions hovered upon how brands can deliver personalization across multiple yet intersecting personas, bringing EX along on the transformation journey and the need for a common architecture.

Here’s the crux of the discussions.

Personalization Drives Better Outcomes

Personalization matters more than ever, and the business value of getting it right cannot be overstated. These days, consumers don’t just want personalization; they “demand” it.

CX wisdom #1 is that when it comes to personalization, we don’t forget that the development aspect does not interfere with the delivery side, according to Tomasino. Organizations need to rationalize around a common architecture and those personalization capabilities.

Personalization drives performance and better outcomes. It is especially effective at driving repeat engagement and loyalty over time. B2B2C enterprises that excel in personalization have a unique approach. Instead of perceiving personalization as a mere marketing or analytics issue, they regard it as an opportunity that spans the entire organization. Moreover, these companies do not concentrate solely on immediate benefits; they search for long-term growth drivers and prioritize CLV (customer lifetime value).

CX wisdom #2 is about simplifying processes around a common architecture, which is incredibly important. According to Rambush, with a common architecture, you’ll create conflicts within those channels. We tend to get siloed in approaching common ways of working together and governing to drive efficiencies. Think about the customer lifecycle holistically as it relates to managing the lifetime value of that customer.

As consumers demand more from customer support organizations, brands should focus on frictionless customer journeys impacting CX.

CX wisdom #3 is that a well-designed, efficient architecture with the customer in mind will translate into a great customer experience. According to Castano, any brand that’s been in business for 30+ years may still have legacy applications in place. Simplify processes and workflows to simplify the delivery experience.

Role of EX in Personalization Strategies

The Employee Experience (EX) plays a crucial role in the success of a company’s customer personalization strategies. Engaged, motivated, and valued support agents are more likely to deliver personalized experiences that exceed customer expectations.

CX wisdom #4 is being deliberate about the culture we create across the organization. According to Tomasino, you must model behavior and bring employees along on the transformation journey. Make curriculum and certification available to high-aptitude employees. “From a partner perspective, if you want them to be partners, you need to treat them that way. How can you balance what your employees or partners are trying to achieve versus what your brand is trying to achieve?”

Brands should take the feedback and then implement feedback from employees and partners. CX leaders need to know their customers and employees; they need to stay tuned to evolving needs in the market and personalize offerings on the front end. They need to tie this back into the customer support function on the back end.

CX wisdom #5 is to make the employee experience of support professionals as easy as possible to satisfy customers. Castino asks, “How do we remove the barriers so that customers never have to call in?”

Bringing It Home

Now, more than ever, customers are tuned toward personalized and targeted digital experiences catering to their needs and preferences. They are quick to switch to competing brands if demands are unmet. Companies surpassing customer expectations have a higher chance of succeeding, whereas those that fail, risk losing their customers and market share. The end-to-end (E2E) customer journey, from the first encounter to the purchase, follow-up assistance, and continuous engagement, is now table stakes and is crucial in establishing trust, loyalty, and advocacy.

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If you are launching a chat initiative, then this short blog carries a big lesson. Uncover the six common traps that cause chat business models to fail.

Chat provides a mechanism for customers to obtain assistance online when browsing a website/mobile app. Based on experience with various chat implementations, and speaking with multiple businesses, it’s clear that the business case for chat is not simple.

The original theory was that chat would mirror an IVR/Automated Phone System and deflect calls. Because agents could service multiple customers concurrently, the model appeared to be a win-win. Customers are serviced in their channel of choice and agents are twice or three times as productive. WRONG! It’s been proven across multiple industries that if this is your sole objective, then your chat business model will fail.

Here are the six reasons why your chat business model could fail:

Reason #1: Lack of clarity on the value proposition
If the ultimate goal with chat is to reduce expenses by avoiding calls, take a hard look at this approach. This is not a valuable add to customers. Your value proposition should be focused on providing assistance in the customer’s channel of choice, possibly by making the sales and acquisition process more convenient for customers.

Reason #2: Fixing the wrong problem
Before implementing, question what it is customers are doing online that drives them to call the contact center. Why couldn’t they self-serve in the first place? Too many times companies launch chat to fill a gap in website design. If customers are not able to complete their transaction easily online without assistance, make that a business priority first. This should go for mobile sites and smart phone/tablet apps also.

Reason #3: Key channels are missed
The majority of organizations are focusing chat efforts on traditional, non-mobile websites. We know that a mobile first mentality is critical. A chat business case needs to include deploying chat on mobile site and apps. Google/Ipsos research states that 90% of smartphone users have used their phone to make progress toward a long-term goal or multi-step process, while “out and about”. If you leave mobile out of your business model you’re missing out on a large group of your customers.

Reason #4: A business benefit has not been monetized
Avoiding a call into the contact center is not a source of revenue, it’s cost avoidance. Additionally, it is only a possible estimate based on what the customer may or may not have done if chat is not available. Your benefit needs to be focused on hard numbers, such as conversion rates or “widgets” sold.

Reason #5: Key partners are not considered thoughtfully
Not all chat software/software vendors are created equal. Many companies apt to lean on the vendor they know best or the latest one that came “knocking”. To ensure you have the right solution and partner consider using issuing a request for proposal (RFP).

Reason #6: Key resources are missed
Have you considered all of the internal resources that will be needed? Are the costs of these resources calculated into your cost structure? Workforce management, quality monitoring, management and other internal resources need to be addressed in your business model. If you don’t calculate these up front, you’ll be surprised with your financials.

Guest blog author Nicholas Klisht, Contact Center Strategist at Nielsen IT Consulting

If you’d like to learn more about chat implementations and four tactical tips to ensure your chat project is successful check out http://www.nielsenitconsulting.com/chat-implementation/.

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The following is a guest blog written by Ted Hunting, Senior Director, North America Marketing and Global Demand Generation, at Genesys. Learn more about Genesys by visiting their website.

To hear more about this topic and others like it, join us at Customer Response Summit Seattle, September 28-30th, 2015.

Gartner’s CEO has proclaimed that Digital Business is Upon Us. Companies that think they are not digital businesses will be out of business and the companies that will win in this era of digital transformation are those companies that make the most of every business moment. What Gartner is proclaiming is key to every company in every industry is essentially “customer care for the connected consumer” – the key topic of the Customer Response Summit Seattle. It’s also why I encourage customer care and CX leaders to attend what I have found in the past to be an extremely enlightening event, attended by smart, energized customer care executives and luminaries. From speakers, to networking, to innovative new ideas in the “Idea Lab”, it will be a fun few days of learning and “eureka” moments.

As CX and contact center leaders in our companies, we are now squarely in a position to help our companies make the most of every business moment and create the connected customer. The business moment occurs via customers hitting web chat, social channels, webpages, IVRs, mobile apps, text messages, and of course good old fashioned phones and email. These business moments, which historically started with the phone, have now changed 180 degrees with digital being the first and preferred communication channels for today’s connected consumer.

Companies like Uber and AirBnB have already started transforming the transportation and hospitality industries through new digital models, yet this is only the beginning of the larger transformations that will hit every industry, from financial services, to retail, to technology. Yet when I have asked CX leaders this year how many can see their entire customers journeys from webchat, to tweets, to IVR, to mobile, to even an in-store visit, 11% has been the highest number among leading companies, in cities across North America. We clearly have a huge gap when it comes to the connected consumer and creating great, seamless, omnichannel journeys. I see great progress, but I also see many companies failing to deliver.

Many companies talk about “omnichannel” but what is really offered as the norm are fragmented conversations, in siloed channels, versus continuous, unified conversations, across channels. Join me in the Idea Lab where we will share a glimpse of a NextGen Contact Center for the Digital Age. Two nextgen ideas will be shared: 1) Using Journey Dashboards with a true omnichannel view, across all channels, to power a great omnichanel customer journey. 2) Innovative new digital approaches for a nextgen customer experience – combining web, voice, mobile, and the Internet of Things.

Digital business and the connected consumer is upon us. For us in the CX industry it’s a golden opportunity to help our companies win like never before. As a CX leader are you and your company ready to play? Or perhaps more importantly…are you ready to win? Come to Seattle and get in the game.

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There will be 45 billion customer service calls in 2015 . That’s over 123 million calls every day! Having agents handling calls is not a scalable and sustainable model for delivering customer service in an increasingly digital world. Customers are expressing a strong preference for self-serve in digital channels, and companies today need to go the “last digital mile” to deliver optimum customer service.

What is the last mile in digital and why is it important? Typically, the “last mile” refers to the final leg of the telecommunications network which delivers connectivity to a retail customer. But, in today’s digital world where between 50-60 percent of customers prefer self-service solutions , the last digital mile now represents the coming together of customer-facing touch points with back-end infrastructure to provide a personalized and friction-less self-service experience for customers. Achieving this requires the integration of data, design, and experience to achieve superior business outcomes that enable you to thrive in the digital world.

The last mile in digital means transitioning from analog channels to deliver optimal digital self-service – and augmenting with assisted service – to deliver rich media interactions across devices and utilizing predictive analytics to anticipate the customer’s needs.

Another thing you can expect is that “incrementality” will become the new reality where end-to-end journeys drive incremental revenues and lifts in NPS. Companies won’t simply engage customers by offering random chats but rather we’ll engage intelligently, based on big data analysis, when the customer needs help to get the job done, and by managing and understanding their digital journey, we will focus on the engagements where value is added. You need to know who to target, when to intervene, how to engage, and what to recommend. Big data, combined with prediction and real-time decision making, make this possible.

In the digital world, designing the customers experience plays a key role. Not all chat offers, for example, are the same. Design elements, such as widget placement, colors, and fonts have a significant impact on acceptance rates. Using a design of experiments approach can help quickly identify the design that generates the best results and improve the customer’s experience.

The upside of delivering a solution that elegantly integrates data, design, and experience to achieve superior business outcomes is significant. Clients using this approach are seeing:

• 60% automation rates
• 90+% completion rates
• $2.5 billion in savings
• 200% increase in conversion rates
• 30 point increase in NPS

If you’d like to learn more about the last mile in digital and how it is benefiting leading finance, retail, telecom and travel companies, please join the webinar The Last Digital Mile: Orchestrating Channels, Data, & Design to Thrive in a Digital World on June 4, 2015 from 1-2 ET. You can register for the webinar here.

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