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Building a Healthy Customer Experience Ecosystem
- 1. Featuring Why and how to build a healthy customer experience ecosystem PERFECTING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
- 2. 1Multi-Channel Customer Engagement in Action 2The Best Engagement Practices Your Customers REALLY Want CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT SERIES 3Why and how to build a healthy Customer Experience ecosystem Featuring
- 3. BEYOND GREAT How to Achieve Remarkable Customer Service Experiences FREE WHITE PAPER DOWNLOAD AT USAN.COM
- 4. QUESTIONS HOW TO ASK QUESTIONS
- 5. Host Robb Duke Director, Marketing USAN Speaker Tad Thompson Vice President, Sales USAN Guest Speaker Megan Burns Principal Analyst Forrester Research PRESENTERS Guest Speaker
- 6. Megan Burns Principal Analyst for Customer Experience Professionals Forrester Research, Inc. Why and how to build a healthy customer experience ecosystem PERFECTING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
- 7. Building a Healthy Customer Experience Ecosystem Megan Burns, Principal Analyst April 23, 2013
- 8. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 8 Agenda › What makes a customer experience ecosystem healthy? › How can companies bring their ecosystem from sickness to health? › Where’s the best place to start?
- 9. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 9 Agenda › What makes a customer experience ecosystem healthy? › How can companies bring their ecosystem from sickness to health? › Where’s the best place to start?
- 10. Customer Experience Ecosystem The complex set of relationships among your company’s employees, partners, and customers . . . . . . that determines the quality of all customer interactions.
- 11. Balance
- 23. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 23 In unhealthy Customer Experience Ecosystems… › Customers repeatedly complain about the experience delivered at one or more touchpoints — or worse, leave › The brand isn’t appropriately expressed at all touchpoints › You’re losing money (or not making enough) at particular touchpoints › Employee turnover is high in certain departments › You have significant disagreements with particular partners
- 24. Tech arrives to install Orders router SW Calls customer service Told there’s no solution Sales rep Charter tech Phone agent 3rd party HW policy Installation fails Phone agent Charter tech Sales rep gets commissio n CRM system 3rd party HW policy Legal dept. Comp policy Human Resources Legal dept. Line of Visibility Finance Schedulin g system
- 25. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 25 Agenda › What makes a customer experience ecosystem healthy? › How can companies bring their ecosystem from sickness to health? › Where’s the best place to start?
- 26. What does our customer experience ecosystem look like?
- 30. employees partners discover evaluate buy access use get support reengage leave marketing interactive agency merchandising sales package designersecurity guards eBusiness IT finance legal shipper tech vendor product mgr retailer operations outsourced call center recruiti service technicians engineering loyalty social media human resources
- 37. Paper statement Envelope Mobile phone IVR Twitter LINE OF VISIBILITY Receives statement in mail Throws statement on desk & ignores Sees charge that looks wrong Logs in to website Tries to get details about charge Calls customer service Talks to CSR Tweets in frustration
- 38. LINE OF VISIBILITY Paper statement CSR Social media group Billing partner Envelope Mobile phone IVR Twitter Billing dept Other Tweeps System designers Bill designer IT Receives statement in mail Throws statement on desk & ignores Sees charge that looks wrong Logs in to website Tries to get details about charge Calls customer service Talks to CSR Tweets in frustration
- 39. LINE OF VISIBILITY Paper statement CSR Social media group Billing partner Envelope Mobile phone Escalates for approval IVR Validates customer again Gets data feedDesigns bill Prints statement Validates customer Displays statement Stuffs into generic envelopes Twitter Billing dept Other Tweeps Determines correct plan Checks Plan and rate System designers Bill designer IT Receives statement in mail Throws statement on desk & ignores Sees charge that looks wrong Logs in to website Tries to get details about charge Calls customer service Talks to CSR Tweets in frustration
- 40. LINE OF VISIBILITY Paper statement CSR Social media group Billing partner Envelope Mobile phone Billing system Escalates for approval IVR Validates customer again Gets data feedDesigns bill Prints statement Validates customer Displays statement Green screen system Stuffs into generic envelopes Generic envelope Twitter Billing dept Other Tweeps Determines correct plan Checks Plan and rate System designers Bill designer IT Receives statement in mail Throws statement on desk & ignores Sees charge that looks wrong Logs in to website Tries to get details about charge Calls customer service Talks to CSR Tweets in frustration
- 41. LINE OF VISIBILITY paper statement CSR social media group billing partner receives statement In mail throws statement on desk & ignores Sees charge that looks wrong envelope logs in to website Tries to get details about charge calls customer service talks to CSR mobile phone billing system escalates for approval IVR validates customer again gets data feeddesigns bill prints statement validates customer displays statement green screen system stuffs into generic envelopes generic envelope tweets in frustration Twitter billing dept other Tweeps determines correct plan checks plan & rate system designers bill designer IT
- 42. LINE OF VISIBILITY paper statement CSR social media group billing partner receives statement In mail throws statement on desk & ignores sees charge that looks wrong envelope logs in to website tries to get details about charge calls customer service talks to CSR mobile phone billing system escalates for approval IVR validates customer again gets data feeddesigns bill prints statement validates customer displays statement green screen system stuffs into generic envelopes generic envelope tweets in frustration Twitter billing dept other Tweeps determines correct plan checks plan & rate system designers bill designer IT
- 43. LINE OF VISIBILITY paper statement CSR social media group billing partner receives statement In mail throws statement on desk & ignores sees charge that looks wrong envelope logs in to website tries to get details about charge calls customer service talks to CSR mobile phone billing system escalates for approval IVR validates customer again gets data feeddesigns bill prints statement validates customer displays statement green screen system stuffs into generic envelopes generic envelope tweets in frustration Twitter billing dept other Tweeps determines correct plan checks plan & rate system designers bill designer IT
- 44. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 44 People
- 45. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 45
- 46. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 46 Process Image source: http://miltonmattox.com/blog/?p=120
- 47. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 47 January 2013 “Adapt Business Process Improvement For Customer Experience ” Source: Forrester Research, Inc.
- 48. 48Source: Forrester Research, Inc. Assess, Prioritize • Assess impact to customer experience • Include customer experience criteria for all project approval decisions Design and Implement • Co-create experiences with customers, employees & partners • Iterate experience designs early and often Launch Solution • Include customer experience criteria in launch checklist Evaluate Success • Measure customer experience quality, not just business or technical performance Generate New Ideas • Solicit innovation ideas from customers via crowd-sourcing, co-creation, unsolicited customer feedback, etc.
- 49. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 50. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited
- 51. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 51 Technology
- 52. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 52 “CEM Platform”
- 53. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 53 Customer Data
- 54. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 54 Source: Forrester Research, Inc. November 2012 “Contextualization”
- 55. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 55 Workflow
- 56. © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited© 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 56 Choice
- 57. March 2011 “Welcome To The Era Of Agile Commerce” The perpetually-connected consumer Source: Forrester Research, Inc.
- 58. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 58 Agenda › What makes a customer experience ecosystem healthy? › How can companies bring their ecosystem from sickness to health? › Where’s the best place to start?
- 60. employees partners discover evaluate buy access use get support reengage leave marketing interactive agency merchandising sales package designersecurity guards eBusiness IT finance legal shipper tech vendor product mgr retailer operations outsourced call center recruiting firm service technicians engineering loyalty social media human resources
- 61. © 2013 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 61 Recommendations › Map your customer experience ecosystem › Adjust your ecosystem to restore balance › Think “ecosystem” when designing new experiences
- 62. Thank youThank you Megan Burns +1 617.613.6294 mburns@forrester.com @mbcxp blogs.forrester.com/megan_burns
- 63. Tad Thompson Vice President, Sales USAN Why and how to build a healthy customer experience ecosystem PERFECTING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
- 64. How to create better customer experiences THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 65. THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 66. THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 67. Why is this so difficult ? THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 68. Cell Land Line PC Mobile Tablet THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM Customer the
- 69. People Call Center Agents Operations IT Sales & Marketing THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM the
- 70. Processes On-boarding new customers Checking an account balance Returning a defective product Opening a customer support ticket THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM the
- 71. THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 72. Technology Legacy (AS/400) CRM ERP Payment Processing THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM the
- 73. Exec Agent Sales IT Finance Ops WFM BI ERP IVR QA CRM AS400 Social Web Server List Mgmt ACD Analytics Dialer Purchase Fulfillment Onboard Accounting RMA Payment Marketing Campaign Shipping THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM Business the
- 74. Cell Land Line PC Mobile Tablet Exec Agent Sales IT FinanceOps WFM BI ERP IVR QA CRM AS/400 Social Web Server List Mgmt ACD Analytics Dialer Business Hours Open Account Place Order Payment RMA Billing Inquiry Credit Check Shipping THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 75. I have a question about my bill. Cell Land Line PC Mobile Tablet Exec Agent Sales IT FinanceOps WFM BI ERP IVR QA CRM AS/400 Social Web Server List Mgmt ACD Analytics Dialer Business Hours Open Account Place Order Payment RMA Billing Inquiry Credit Check Shipping THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 76. Cell Land Line PC Mobile Tablet Exec Agent Sales IT FinanceOps WFM BI ERP IVR QA CRM AS/400 Social Web Server List Mgmt ACD Analytics Dialer Business Hours Open Account Place Order Payment RMA Billing Inquiry Credit Check Shipping We’re changing business hours! THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 77. Cell Land Line PC Mobile Tablet Exec Agent Sales IT FinanceOps WFM BI ERP IVR QA CRM AS/400 Social Web Server List Mgmt ACD Analytics Dialer Business Hours Open Account Place Order Payment RMA Billing Inquiry Credit Check Shipping Get CVV code on payment calls! THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 78. The Solution
- 79. Cell Land Line PC Mobile Tablet Exec Agent Sales IT FinanceOps WFM BI ERP IVR QA CRM AS/400 Social Web Server List Mgmt ACD Analytics Dialer Business Hours Open Account Place Order Paym ent RMA Billing Inquiry Credit Check Shipping THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 80. Cell Land Line PC Mobile Tablet Exec Agent Sales IT FinanceOps WFM BI ERP IVR QA CRM AS/400 Social Web Server List Mgmt ACD Analytics Dialer Business Hours Open Account Place Order Paym ent RMA Billing Inquiry Credit Check Shipping THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 81. Address: 123 Any Street City: Anytown State: GA Zip: 12345 Office: 123-456-7890 Cell: 234-567-8901 Email” susanhaynes@acme.com Twitter: @susanbhaynes Facebook: Gender: Female Age: 26 PURCHASES Product 1000 – 1/2/12 - $100 Product 2211 – 11/11/11 - $12.59 PREFERENCES Contact: Cell Products: College Loans INTERACTIONS Inbound – Support – 9/14/12 Outbound – Marketing – 6/1/11 Cell Land Line PC Mobile Tablet Exec Agent Sales IT FinanceOps WFM BI ERP IVR QA CRM AS/400 Social Web Server List Mgmt ACD Analytics Dialer Business Hours Open Account Place Order Paym ent RMA Billing Inquiry Credit Check Shipping Susan Haynes Customer since 1999 THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- 82. PREFERENCES General Contact: Cell Billing: Email Notifications: SMS Susan Haynes Customer since 1999 Lucy Feldman Customer since 2012 PREFERENCES General Contact: Email Billing: Email Notifications: SMS and Email PREFERENCES General Contact: Land Line Billing: No Preference Notifications: No preference THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM John Smith Customer since 2001
- 83. Questions
- 84. FREE WHITE PAPER DOWNLOAD Beyond Great: How to Achieve Remarkable Customer Service Experiences
- 85. CONTACT USAN TODAY! USAN United States Advanced Network 3080 Northwoods Circle Norcross, GA 30071 770.409.2441 www.usan.com | sales@usan.com
- 86. Why and how to build a healthy customer experience ecosystem PERFECTING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Notes de l'éditeur
- Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us today for our webcast “Perfecting the Customer Experience: Why and how to build a healthy customer experience ecosystem”. Today’s webinar is sponsored by United States Advanced Network, more commonly known as USAN. USAN is a provider of contact center technology and customer engagement solutions. And we’re also pleased to have a guest speaker today from Forrester Research, whom we’ll introduce you to in a moment. I’m sure most of you know that Forrester is a global research and advisory firm that provides proprietary research, consumer and business data, custom consulting and much, much more.
- Today’s webcast is the 3rd in a 3-part webinar/white paper series from USAN on Customer Engagement. If you haven’t already, we encourage you to visit our website at www.usan.com to check out these previous episodes in our CE series. And of course this event will be archived and available for replay – attendees will receive an email with a link to the archived version as soon as we can make it available online.
- To learn more about how USAN helps solve the customer ecosystem dilemma described in this webcast, please download our newest white paper, “Remarkable Customer Experiences…” We’ll also include a link to this download form in an email sent to all attendees after the event is concluded.
- Participants are encouraged to ask questions of our speakers today. You may submit your questions at anytime during the presentation using the Webex interface. On the lower-right-hand side of the screen, in the area labeled Chat, you can submit your question anonymously. We will answer as many questions as we have time to during the Q&A portion, in approximately 45 minutes.
- My name is Robb Duke, Director of Marketing for USAN, and I’ll be your host today. First to speak will be our guest, Megan Burns, Principal Analyst for Customer Experience Professionals at Forrester Research. Then we will hear from Tad Thompson, Vice President of Sales for USAN.
- And now we’re ready to begin. I’m honored to introduce Megan Burns, Principal Analyst for Customer Experience Professionals at Forrester Research. Ms. Burns is a leading expert on customer experience management, maturity, benchmarking, governance, and ROI. She is the creator of Forrester's Customer Experience Maturity Framework and manages The Customer Experience Index, Forrester's annual benchmark of customer experience quality across more than 150 large US firms. We at USAN follow her work closely and encourage you all to do the same. And now, Megan, I’ll turn the presentation over to you.
- Butterflies? Why are butterflies so important?Source: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-2927140520
- Well apparently, there aren’t as many of them in Zion National Park as there used to be.Source: http://www.citypictures.org/r-north-america-151-united-states-156-utah-235-swirling-sandstone-formations-zion-national-park-utah-3050.htm
- Zion National Park was developed in the early 1900s — and with that development came an influx of tourists.Human foot traffic scared off – NOT the butterflies – but the beautiful cougars.Source: http://tedmuller.us/Outdoor/Hiking/2009/090327-AngelsLanding.htm
- These beautiful cougars. They retreated from the areas of park frequented by tourists. With fewer predators around, the park’s…Source: http://backcountryutah.blogspot.com/2010/08/dwr-proposes-cougar-hunting-rules-for.html
- deer population increased DRAMATICALLY. And while the deer are admittedly SUPER cute, they are also…Source: http://meditationsfromzion.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/deer.jpg
- And they became unstoppable in their quest to devour everything in their path — Source:http://tedmuller.us/Outdoor/Hiking/2009/090327-AngelsLanding.htm
- Including cottonwood tree saplings. The deer gobbled up these trees almost as quickly as they sprouted.And with fewer trees reaching adolescence and maturity, the streambanks lost their primaryof source of erosion protection.Source: http://philandmichele.blogspot.com/
- The eroding streambanks in turn made it difficult for wildflowers to take root and bloom.Source: http://kindlingforhim.blogspot.com/2010/08/zion-national-park.html
- And with fewer wildflowers, the butterflies had little to eat, and so they left.Source: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-2927140520
- Humans –> cougars -> deer -> cottonwood trees -> streambanks -> wildflowers -> butterfliesThis chain of events, Sources:http://tedmuller.us/Outdoor/Hiking/2009/090327-AngelsLanding.htmhttp://backcountryutah.blogspot.com/2010/08/dwr-proposes-cougar-hunting-rules-for.htmlhttp://meditationsfromzion.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/deer.jpghttp://philandmichele.blogspot.com/http://kindlingforhim.blogspot.com/2010/08/zion-national-park.htmlhttp://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-2927140520
- Cuaseda perfectly healthy and sustainable ecosystem to deteriorate.And believe it or not, it took scientists DECADES to understand what was really going on in the park.That’s because natural ecosystems, like the one in Zion, comprise complex interdependent relationships that change over time.A customer experience ecosystem is quite similar. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonstateuniversity/4047346813/
- These are the types of symptoms that indicate that there’s a problem with your CXE – and our goal is understand why that problem is happening – And then fix it.
- Buthttp://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-2927140520
- In customer experience LAND, we talk about a customer interactions in terms of journeys
- Thesejourneys include some pretty standard steps.But at each of these steps there can be 10s IF NOT HUNDREDS of uniquetouchpointscreating millions of permutations for customer interactions.Over the next several hours we’ll discuss each one in detail.Just kidding.Let’s take a look at just a few of them.
- At ALL of these touchpoints that we’ve just talked about AND HUNDREDS MORE, your employees and your partners are interacting with customers either directly – or indirectly. They’re influencing the customer experience.
- I’m not just talking about frontline folks, here. These are just a few of the employees and partners that are responsible for those interactions.THIS MESSINESS -- THIS IS YOUR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ECOSYSTEM
- One tool that we like a lot comes from the field of service design. It’s called a service blueprint.This particular diagram was created by service design agency live|work for a service called Saverbox, which helps people finance energy saving home improvements, LIKE insulation installation – say that three times fast!Source: WarmZone and live|work
- At the top of the blueprint, we’ve got the customer journey.Source: WarmZone and live|work
- In the middle, we got all the customer touchpoints. Essentially everything that the customer can see, hear, and interact with.Source: WarmZone and live|work
- And at the very bottom, we’ve got the stuff that happens behind the scenes. In this case, it’s the activities of the three companies involved in delivering the Saverbox service.Source: WarmZone and live|work
- All together, they form a pretty good picture of the customer experience ecosystem.Like I said, there are lots of different formats for this.Source: WarmZone and live|work
- Virgin Media mapped its ecosystem on BUTCHER PAPER. RED IS CUSTOMER JOURNEY. The different colors of sticky notes represent the activities of different internal departments throughout the customer journey. The important thing to remember is that while this exercise is about helping you understand your ecosystem – it’s also about getting people from different parts of your organization talking and understanding their OWN roles in the ecosystem.Once you understandIT.Source:Virgin Media
- BEFORE: GE focused on its direct customers, physicians and administrators at large health care providers. So they produced these feature-rich MRI machines that would like right at home on the death star. But guess what? There is a huge movement among healthcare providers to focus on patient experience. And some of those patients are……children. And as it turns out, upwards of 80% of children need sedation to go into MRI machines. This a horrible experience for the kids, and it adds time and expense to the procedures – so it’s not great for the hospitals, either.
- Image sources: http://www.flickr.com/photos/reticulating/5288349613/sizes/l/in/photostream/http://www.flickr.com/photos/roscoe/7448050556/sizes/h/in/photostream/http://www.flickr.com/photos/mariettaga/4622352504/sizes/l/in/photostream/PPT Clip Art
- If you want to fix the butterfly problem in Zion, you can’t just cargo drop a ton of butterflies over the park. That’s not going to do any good in the long run. To fix the butterfly problem, you’ve first got understand the INTERDEPENCIES IN THAT ECOSYSTEM and then take control of them.Source:http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/5415996420/in/photostreamhttp://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-2927140520
- Similarly, if you want to improve your customer experience, you can’t just put a bunch of band-aids on the touchpoints. You need to understand this ecosystem and take control of it.Source:http://www.rankopedia.com/Favorite-US-Brand-Name-That-Is-Used-Generically/Step1/12382/.htm
- Thank you Megan for that excellent presentation. Before we move on, a quick reminder to our participants: you may ask questions at any time during this presentation using the Chat feature in the lower-right portion of your screen. And now I’m pleased to introduce my colleague Tad Thompson, Vice President of Sales at USAN.
- As Megan has said, a healthy customer experience ecosystem is what is needed to deliver the seamless experience customers demand today. And we couldn’t agree more with Megan– and all of the Forrester CE analysts, really – about their assessment of the customer experience ecosystem.Remarkable customer service results in loyal customers; customers who are eager to express their love and passion for a company. The interactions between these companies and customers are more than simple monetary transactions; theirs are experiences upon which long-term, profitable relationships are built. But how do you create these experiences? A unified multi-channel customer experience is necessary for your company to move beyond introductions and build solid, mutually beneficial relationships. How beneficial? According to analyst firm Forrester, “the loyalty-based revenue benefits for a firm going from a below-industry-average Customer Experience Index (CXi) score to an above-average score ranged from $31 million for retailers to $1.4 billion for hotels.” It’s hard to argue with those numbers.
- Megan tells us that a healthy ecosystem is achieved by striking a balance between people, processes and technology. It’s interesting, because Forrester, in a way, plays the role of a fitness guru who tells companies they must offer a better customer experience by achieving this healthy balance. And smart companies pay attention to this advice by improving their business processes and recognizing the need to provide a seamless and consistent experience to their customers in every channel. But once they’ve done this: envisioned a customer journey, improved business processes, and invested in technologies to facilitate customer interactions… they have to make it all work together. The actual doing, the implementation of these recommendations, is easier said than done.Delivering consistent, remarkable customer service across multiple touch points has traditionally been a challenge. The technology just didn’t exist to easily integrate disparate technologies and deliver uninterrupted context. Nevertheless, customers know remarkable service when they see it – and they expect it. And why shouldn’t they? Customers are tech-savvy. They know data is collected about them as they peruse your website, call into your IVR and click on your promotional emails. They become frustrated when touch points are not unified and, therefore, accomplishing a task – such as canceling an order or getting information – requires starting over several times before it is accomplished.
- Why? Because it’s a real struggle to attain the harmonious balance of the people, process and technology in any business. Some businesses crumble under the weight of this new approach. As a health-conscious person attempts to improve their health, after having listened to the guru’s advice, they turn to trainers and gyms – the people and facilities needed to put their plans into action.
- But once you’re ready to dive in to a healthier lifestyle, challenges immediately appear. Getting healthy is hard! So, why is it so difficult to implement these customer-facing business processes?
- Let’s first look at the customer’s world. In addition to their increasing power in the business conversation, they are equipped with the communications devices they need to interact with any business at virtually any time. Starting with land line telephones and later PCs with internet access, email and chat, customers later obtained cell phones and now have powerful mobile phones and tablet devices that give them tremendous power in interacting with a business. Everything a company does today is based on enabling a connection with these devices and providing a seamless experience regardless of the device being used.Customers can interact with your company through any number of touch points, but the customer remains a single entity. In order to fulfill its role in the relationship, your company must present itself as a unified, intelligent entity to the customer via uninterrupted context. When this happens, both parties win. The customer benefits from remarkable service and value. Your company benefits from loyal customers who serve as advocates to your brand. In today’s era of social media, such advocates are truly priceless.
- As Megan mentioned earlier, the customer experience ecosystem from the business’ perspective consists of people, processes and technology. The People in this mix are the employees of the enterprise, grouped by department and role, as well as the partners and suppliers who make the business go!
- The processes involved are all-encompassing and span people and systems (more on this later). For almost every business activity there is a business process. Some are simple, some are incredibly complex, but they all play some part in facilitating customer interactions.
- Business processes often exist in Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, or Visio diagrams. Sometimes they only exist in a business person’s mind. But a single business process often exists across technology and departments – and this creates one of the biggest problems we must solve to achieve the balance in the ecosystem we all desire.
- The technology required to interact with customers and transact business represents a vast collection of software and hardware either located on-premise, in the cloud, or a combination of the two.
- Let’s look at all of these ecosystem components in the context of the ecosystem itself. Typically each department has its own, unique technologies and business processes that must interact with other department’s technology and business processes. Over time your company’s ecosystem has likely grown into a similar mixture of people, processes and technology that attempt to interact to facilitate customer interactions.
- When the customer experience ecosystem converges with the Customer’s sphere of influence, the nexus of those environments is the channel technology required to connect the two parties. The most common channel technologies include voice, SMS, email, mobile applications, social media portals like Facebook and Twitter, and text chat.Customer interactions are no longer limited to voice, IVR and email. In addition to these traditional channels we also communicate with customers via the Web, mobile, SMS, blogs, Twitter, Facebook . . . the list goes on. The number of touch points through which a customer may interact with your company grows almost daily. Meanwhile, there is also mounting pressure to deliver not just great but standout, remarkable customer service. Commoditization has leveled the playing field, eliminating competitive differentiators like access to global factories and supply chains. As a result, companies are competing in a service-oriented market in which the quality of customer service is the competitive differentiator. Unfortunately, the proliferation of touch points makes delivering that customer service more complex than ever before.Companies use heterogeneous technologies to manage individual channels, creating multiple silos across the organization. The company may be able to communicate with the customer via any number of channels, but the channels themselves are disconnected.
- To see the ecosystem in action, let’s see what all is involved in facilitating a typical customer interaction where the customer has a question about their bill. In this case, our customer uses her cell phone to call her service provider. The channel technology bridging the interaction is the voice channel. Once connected, the IVR pre-treats the call with automated service options for the caller. Based on their selection, the ACD searches for and finds an available agent. So far, all of these activities are orchestrated by a business process that defines the correct steps of the interaction. The call center agent processes the request using a CRM application which is also connected to their mainframe AS/400.For such a simple interaction, there are multiple people, processes and technologies that are affected by it. But what happens when a business needs to make a change? How does it impact the balance of the ecosystem?
- Here’s an example of a business that decides to change its business hours. This seems like a simple change to make, but for many businesses, this could represent a significant effort in terms of time and cost, not to mention potential down-time and inconsistency in service. Why? Because a change must be made to every component of the lifecycle represented here. There are five separate sets of changes required to make this seemingly simple business change happen.
- Let’s look at another example of a business change and how it affects the components of your customer experience ecosystem. In this example, the business has decided to start requesting a customer’s credit card CVV code for all purchases. This change affects all of the highlighted people, processes and technologies and represents significant change! And…here’s the rub. Once all of these changes have been made (the call center agent has been informed, the CRM system has the newly added fields, the IVR has a new voice script and menu tree, etc.) the channel technologies – the “front door” of the interaction with the customer, remain unchanged and unaware of the newly required information. In spite of your best efforts, you still have more work to do, and until you do, your customers are not experiencing a seamless interaction with your business.If you were to integrate the many touch points in your organization it could take months, maybe even years, and it would be a costly endeavor. With today’s technology, integration takes weeks and the solution is far less expensive than other enterprise solutions of the same scale.
- But there is a solution! The goal of a healthy customer experience ecosystem is to achieve balance, and the result is a strong business that knows how to take care of its customers.As previously mentioned, integrating multiple touch points has traditionally been a challenge. Companies use heterogeneous technologies to manage individual channels, creating multiple silos across the organization. The company may be able to communicate with the customer via any number of channels, but the channels themselves are disconnected. The sales rep at the brick-and-mortar Big Box Store knows nothing about the customer’s interactions with the call center, and the call center rep has no information on the customer’s online activity. The good news is that today’s engagement platforms can break through these silos and interconnect all your points of presence, providing uninterrupted context between channels for a seamless experience. There’s no need to develop integration software in-house or rip-and-replace half your customer engagement solutions to create a homogenous environment that can be integrated with technology from the same vendor. Software can harness every piece of technology currently deployed in your environment and assess every point of information in every channel to create a truly unified picture of your customer interactions. Moreover, you gain a real-time view of customers. The data you see hasn’t been dumped into a central repository for unified analysis. It is provided in near real-time, within the context of that customer’s interactions.
- By centralizing business processes, and making changes to a business process in one place that impacts the people, processes and technology throughout the ecosystem, an enterprise can take control of and simplify the process of business change.
- Now that the business has centralized its business processes, it has created a platform to integrated the people, processes and technology with a greater ease. This makes it possible to make changes in real-time or near real-time that can impact every component of the lifecycle…especially including the channel technologies.
- The end result of this approach is a highly enriched and clear picture of the customer, including their interaction history and preferences.Our technology can provide context-relevant customer data from multiple systems, making all that information available to business processes – again, consistently, instantly, and across all channels.
- The end result of this approach is a highly enriched and clear picture of the customer, including their interaction history and preferences.Our technology can provide context-relevant customer data from multiple systems, making all that information available to business processes – again, consistently, instantly, and across all channels.
- To learn more about how USAN helps solve the customer ecosystem dilemma described in this webcast, please download our newest white paper, “Beyond Great: How to Achieve Remarkable Customer Experiences”