AHT, NPS, CSAT – the metrics that drive customer experience operations are well-known.
But it’s the thinking and the intent that goes beyond the purely operational considerations that, in our experience, delivers transformational value for our client-partners.
Here are three key things that we think you should be demanding of your next customer experience (CX) partner.
Create value – not cost
It goes without saying that delivering a great customer experience, at the right price point, is table stakes.
But price only tells half the story – the conversation you need to be having is about value.
Think about this for a minute – customers who have a superior experience spend on average 140% more than those who don’t. Conversely, you might recall United Airlines’ brand crisis, when the airline instantly lost $1.4 billion in the market after a passenger’s experience went viral on social media.
Every customer experience is different – the context, the emotional state, the problem that needs solving. Taking a visionary approach, and always asking “what if” drives you beyond merely an efficiency-focused cost center to a customer loyalty engine and value generator.
Focus on actionable insights – not just data
Today’s customer experience operations generate huge amounts of data – and a good operation is able to capture and report on it in real time. But too often, that’s where it ends.
A truly great operation is one that turns data into actionable insight – data that has been interpreted to provide a clear course of action, and then placed into the hands of those best able to take that action – in the shortest possible timeframe.
Reduce the risk of change
While it’s necessary to delight today’s customer, the only way to ensure that you will have customers to delight tomorrow is a constant desire to learn, test and innovate.
Easy to say, but much harder to execute, true innovation is a combination of design, agility, and in-market experimentation – all while ensuring that customers continue to receive the experience and service they require.
Finding a way do this at speed is often daunting for organizations – especially when that change touches customers. A partner who not only understands this but is able to remove risk is of the utmost importance in ensuring you can innovate at speed.
