Unify All Disjointed Systems for An Enhanced Customer Experience

H. C. Madhavi
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December 13, 2016
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1,058

We all are in a technological bubble of the digital world. It is a connected environment of networking and communications. People love the transition to the digital world from the physical one. This has taken the customer experience to an all new level, and they are hungry for more.

Let us take an incident where a telecom customer wants to renew his data plan:

He realizes the need for it while working on his system, goes to his TSP’s website for assessing value-added plans, and chooses one. He then logs off from his system to pursue his search on his mobile during a travel or drive. He might then drop in at the service centre, or call up the agent for an update of his data plan.

It would really be a sour experience if he has to always start from the scratch every time he logs in to a new touch point. A customer would obviously wish that his brand could follow and track his customer journey, and pick up from where he left every time he chooses a touch point. He would love it, if the agents were empowered to brief him on a customized data plan and upgrade it for him as well.

Digital Engagement is the buzzword in today’s business world. It has gone beyond the notion that customers are connecting with enterprises over many communication channels using a variety of devices. The new element is that customers often use multiple channels simultaneously and there is an expectation that the internal stakeholders are knowledgeable about the steps that the customer has taken before reaching out to an agent.

When customers call a contact center, it is likely not to be the first step they have taken to solve their problem or get an answer to a question. They could have tried some kind of self-service: like visiting the company’s website, using the web chat service or sending an email. They might also have reached out on social media or tried using a mobile application. Email, web chat, social media, and most recently, mobile application interactions have inalterably changed the landscape.

It is not any one of these digital channels but a combination of all of these is heralding a new era in customer care. Today digital interactions have overtaken voice calls.

The other aspect of this story would be: when a customer opens a bank account, the marketing team sends him irrelevant campaigns and offers. This happens because the internal departments operate in silos. They are fragmented and have no information about a customer’s life cycle.

The customer would be really happy if he is not bothered until he accumulates a good savings. And better, if he gets relevant offers and investment plans i.e., proactive communications.

Anytime + Anywhere

Customer experience is enhanced by creating synergy across multiple channels.

The omni-channel shopping influences customer behaviour and buying patterns. Businesses need to partner with the 21st century shopper to provide: anytime, anywhere shopping experience.

Deploying an integrated technology platform to provide a uniform and ubiquitous experience has become the key to making this partnership successful.

Companies that deliver personalized experiences via digital and physical touch points are more profitable. Businesses need to deliver user-centric, highly contextualized, deeply personal customer experiences. This personalization is a part of the digital transformation which has a greater customer lifetime value, more loyalty, and higher sales.

Do it the right way

Whenever customers interact with a brand, they leave behind a rich trail of digital body language. This can be used as cues to build a unified view of their interests, preferences and social connections, as well as their interactions with a brand and the outcomes of those activities. Delivering the right offer, to the right customer, at exactly the right time, in a format tailored to that person’s physical or virtual location in the buying journey, requires seamless integration of back-end and presentation-layer systems.

The digital and physical side of communications has to converge.

Digital transformation requires a strong digital foundation for offering this personalization. Consideration has to be taken for engagement and retention of customers, generation of more revenue and transformation of operations. This requires a solution to architect it and support it. Done right, digital transformation is based on digital adoption that act as a platform for providing personalized experiences and gaining insight into how well they perform.

Unified platform for all engagements

With the emergence of digital media, customers buying patterns have changed considerably. Not only do they make more informed decisions today, but also expect a seamless buying experience across channels. Businesses are now incorporating strategies to offer an enriched experience to their customers, right from marketing to the after sales support. Integrated digital transformation is now a key objective for businesses today, and will be for years to come.

The business strategy is to bring all the key parameters – online and offline channels, data and technology, customer behaviour and experience – onto one platform.  

When successfully implemented, this leads to improved brand recognition and revenues, increased customer base, enhanced customer experience, and competitive differentiation.

Customers access and avail business offerings through all channels simultaneously. It is imperative for businesses to reach out to customers in every way possible, so that they can serve them better and maintain a healthy bottom line.

Getting the edge

A customer engagement hub plays significant role to communicate more effectively with customers. The platform should be capable of sending the right message to the right customer at the right time through the right channel.

Enterprises need to engage customers constantly through their preferred channels of communication to increase loyalty and experience, simultaneously reducing customer service costs.

The need for a unified platform stems from the demand of customers to avail business offerings through all channels simultaneously. Thus, businesses must have a mechanism to keep a tab on and analyse their customers’ online conversations to proactively offer a consistent brand experience across channels, taking customer preferences into consideration. Eliminating silos to ensure a seamless customer experience across all channels is the call of the hour.

Once the most valuable customers are identified and their behaviour understood, businesses need to take action on these insights and create a customer experience that leads to a sale. To do so, they need an organizational structure that supports it.

This structure connects to all the existing customer response applications to provide a unified platform, proactively responding to customers’ usage, requests and queries. This form of communication provides a relevant channel to send out marketing messages along with required communication to up-sell. Proactive communications give control of the customer behavior, thereby improving experience, loyalty, and brand value.

A platform that supports a single connectivity through multiple indirect channels

Solution: A software that has agility, and is easy to iterate front-end offerings quickly, while optimizing core legacy systems slowly. APIs to speed turnaround cycles by connecting legacy solutions to new internal applications and external services, without replacing core systems or creating new ones for each new capability.

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