With the average customer service issue taking around nine hours to resolve, as opposed to the expected 14.5 minutes, businesses must prioritise their customer experience (CX) if they want to continue to attract and retain loyal consumers.
Furthermore, every month UK businesses lose an estimated £11.4bn as a direct consequence of poor customer service, according to the Institute of Customer Service, with reported satisfaction dropping year-on-year.
Businesses must develop a robust CX programme capable of harnessing deep customer insights and constantly monitoring and strengthening their reputation.
Research shows that 82% of customers would desert a brand after one bad experience. Poor customer service experiences only tarnish an organisation’s image and harm its business outcomes.
Currency in the form of data
Customer insight obtained from feedback holds valuable stock for a business with data as a form of currency, especially to ensure they remain competitive.
Analysing the vast amounts of data that results from customer feedback is difficult to manage, time-consuming, and an operational challenge, particularly for organisations with siloed data across different locations.
By collecting and aggregating all data available from a business’ digital channels and turning it into insight, organisations can quantify the improvement, set targets, drive business outcomes and increase revenue. It can sound like a substantial project, but with today’s customer experience management tools, it needn’t be overwhelming.
Customer interactions come from a number of touchpoints, such as social media channels, review surveys and websites, chatbots and private customer interaction, and net promoter scores (NPS). It can be complicated to unlock the insight from the data, but the feedback gives businesses an abundance of unstructured data, which is critical for engaging with the public at a deeper level and quickly identifying areas for improvement.
By acting upon the data resulting from feedback, car manufacturer Kia UK was able to change market perceptions. It discovered its star rating was falling across locations and transitioned its business culture to include customer sentiment when making business decisions. Increasing its capacity to respond to reviews by 750% saw it attract more reviews and customers, contributing to its market share jumping by 25%.
Similarly, Westfield Group managed to drive organic growth by focusing on improving operations at its different locations. Building a culture of customer-centricity, it used customised tools to generate meaningful insight by soliciting, analysing and acting upon customer feedback.
It was able to take steps to meet customer demands such as cleaner centres and improving parking facilities as a result of having a better understanding of customer preferences. Its NPS rose from 24 to 39 and its star rating improved from 4.1 to 4.3, and its shopping centres with higher NPS and customer satisfaction achieved higher occupation rates.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP)
Some businesses use AI to process feedback, interpret it into customer sentiment and convert the insight into action. Additionally, companies are using AI to automate certain responses like FAQs and redirect more complex queries to human operatives who can provide a more personalised response.
AI continues to develop quickly and its ability to understand the context behind customer feedback is improving apace. Engines that use NLP – giving computers the ability to understand the text and spoken words like humans – are delivering a more granular level of insight from customers in the context of where they are in the customer journey.
CX and the Chief Customer Officer
Also rooted in business success is an understanding of your customers and staff. As such, some companies have introduced a Chief Customer Officer (CCO) – their duty is to manage the brand’s health and reputation. Responsible for navigating negative feedback and identifying red flags, they ensure a rapid response backed by a crisis management plan. A CCO armed with the right technology can support communications, marketing, and sales departments as well as CX.
No business is immune to the consequences of poor CX. A mistimed post on social media or one discontent customer comment can quickly turn into a crisis that can hurt a business’s revenue and reputation. However, handled correctly a moment of crisis can be an opportunity for a company to showcase its integrity by being, honest, responsible, and trustworthy – characteristics that customers and employees alike hold in high regard.
CX as a mirror to employee experience
Feedback also affects team spirit and staff morale. Employee experience is a vital part of protecting a brand, and businesses should be particularly attentive right now with the UK talent shortage in mind.
A stained reputation and public image can deter prospective talent from wanting to work for a business and result in the exodus of staff and industry know-how.
Deloitte found that over a third of Gen Z and Millennials have turned down employers that didn’t align with their values. values. However, those happy with their company’s attempts to nurture a diverse and inclusive culture and the societal and environmental impact of the employer were more likely to stay for five years or over.
Workplace and company culture transparency help retain talent. In turn, content employees deliver stronger customer service. This is where a CCO can help in recognising the staff more likely to leave and initiate the steps early to help encourage them to stay. A positive consequence of this is that it contributes to creating a positive work environment, helping to inspire teams and drive better business results.
Catering to customer tastes
Quickly responding to the needs of staff and customers is key to keeping them satisfied and is critical for business success – this means carefully listening to better understand them.
Keeping updated on ever-changing customer values and how they feel about your company needs constant monitoring. Reacting to a decline in positive reviews for a regional outlet could be the deciding factor in turning around sales targets or watching for emerging trends like the public paying more attention to a company’s green credentials.
Businesses that foster public and private channels of CX contact to unlock the insight from solicited and unsolicited feedback can better align with customer values, react to customer appetite, and gain a competitive edge in the process.
