The customer journey for businesses today is markedly different than it was, say, over a decade ago, where traditional product advertising fed familiarity and loyalty that shaped the direct buying decision. Since the burst of the Internet into the modern scene that revolutionised the search for information at one’s fingertips, along with smartphones that monumentally transformed the way we consume content, customers in this present landscape not only have greater access to resources but proactively seek out personalised interaction and services through multiple touchpoints.
In a nutshell, customers who hold the buying power and decision-making today would come to expect enhanced customer experiences tailored to their needs and preferences, the trust and connection to the company they are buying from, and the simplicity that comes with the ease of processes designed to help them achieve their business outcomes. Enabling an outstanding customer experience, therefore, is really the sum of these key traits: Customer-first focus; Personalisation (of services); and Value-creation through innovation and simplification.
Let’s talk through how each strategy underpins the heart of the overall customer experience, and how teams can go on to orchestrate and deliver excellent experience that your customer demands.
Customer-first focus
By putting customers and people at the heart of your customer experience, this could reinforce customer loyalty and commitment. In this current landscape where technology and digital tools are often promoted, it is easy to lose sight of that vital crux of human interaction to offer customers the kind of reassurance and inclusiveness. Yet, not every process or stage in the customer journey can benefit from digitalisation.
Therefore, gauging emotions and responses will help businesses strike the right balance for technology and human contact. Having a cognitive omnichannel marketing strategy could also enhance responsiveness and satisfaction levels of customers. It is essential that we should always start from the customer perspective before working inwards to cover employees, processes and tools, and partner vendors. And why employees? The fact is that the correlation between employee experience and customer experience is so closely intertwined that empowering employee loyalty is more likely to produce higher levels of customer loyalty.
Personalisation of services
These days, it is all about bespoke services, customised to the needs of the customer based on an acute understanding of their pain points and preferences. Having a pre-emptive customer service mindset whether from gathering intelligence and feedback through your sales agents or contact centres’ interactions for instance, to tracking trending issues and patterns, could potentially offer insights into what customers are thinking. When tapped, these insights could well serve up tailored approaches and solutions for the customer, thus boosting conversion opportunities.
To this end, delivering a personalised experience at every stage of the customer journey is possible with the right synchronisation of human connection and digital touchpoints. Establishing a digital omnipresence as part of a transformative, omnichannel journey while harnessing the power of data with real-time analytics will not only enable a consistent touch of experience for your customers, but will go on to help build a trusted, secure, and personalised relationship with them.
Value-creation through innovation and simplification
Digitalisation has proven to add value and optimize customer experience, such as the increased deployment of AI-backed tools to help serve customers more efficiently and support employees more effectively. But with so many technological options out there in this bustling scene, it is understandable that this task can prove to be overwhelming and thus, choosing the right technology would be a complex undertaking.
Innovation should be about creating and adding value to your business outcomes, infrastructure, and processes to drive simplification and fast resolution, as well as ensuring transparency, security, and compliance to data privacy laws and governance. While the security aspect with sensitive data handling and storage will certainly increase customers’ confidence, the value that technology can inject with simplification and transparency will help with a more rapid data access for the rightful users, increased visibility, and streamlined processes for ease and efficiency.
Conclusion
Assessing your customer experience maturity level is the imperative step to knowing where your customer experience approach currently stands, the actions that one can take to grow the trajectory and strategy, and the decision-making thought process to invest in technology and optimise resources, backed by your business cases. Orange Business helps to elevate organisations’ customer experience through our unique ecosystem of partners, comprising some of the best equipment providers in the industry, to curate technological solutions best suited to your needs, whichever the point it may be in your roadmap. Find out more here.
Andrew has more than 20 years of experience working in the IT and Telecommunications sector. He has a strong background in sales, leadership, management, and team building, underpinned by a customer-focused mindset. As the Managing Director for Orange Business Australia and New Zealand since 2021, he has seen through transformation of Orange Business both globally and locally, growing the business and driving market awareness, while restructuring the team to create the most optimal outcomes for the business. Andrew is people-oriented and results-focused with a strong history of creating environments to build high-performing teams, while known for his open and engaging interpersonal manner.