The role of automation in customer experience is hotly debated: on the one hand providers of technology to fully automate customer interactions promise a seamless, trackable and inexpensive management of the customer journey – on the other, champions of live agent interaction remain sceptical. Although it is of course possible, and even positive, to introduce some degree of automation in customer experience, many would argue that interaction with a real, live person is still critical, our customer journey research shows.
In order to shed some light on this controversy, Yonder Digital Group commissioned research canvassing the opinions of more than 1,000 UK consumers, asking them to align loyalty and increase in business outcomes with different standards of customer experience. Their response was overwhelmingly clear: channel choice and human interaction at key stages of the customer journey are the deal-sealers when it comes to developing loyalty or even averting defection.
The research uncovered that 84% of UK consumers are more likely to make repeat purchases and to increase their business with companies that provide them with a range of channels to get in touch with them. These can include email, social media and automated chatbots, but one channel that UK consumers clearly indicated businesses cannot do without if they want to remain successful is the telephone manned by real live agents (87%).
In fact, access to a human being to talk to at key stages of the customer journey, such as when making a query about composition of a product, possible bulk purchase discounts, repeat sales systems, non-standard purchases or complaints can make a critical difference to the success of the customer interaction. More than two-thirds of respondents (69%) warn that if they can’t get hold of a real person with their important queries, they will defect and buy from another company.
Speed of resolution is, of course, another key issue for consumers contacting a business via whatever channel. In fact, being obliged to go down more than one channel in order to get a response can cause frustration in itself. So, while it’s no surprise that 92% of UK consumers are more inclined to keep buying from businesses that resolve their issues rapidly and effectively, or even to buy more from them in future becoming more valuable customers, it’s important that businesses take note of the reverse aspect, too: 81% of consumers will actually defect to another company if they find that queries are not answered rapidly and efficiently.
Slow response times lead to damning testimonials; in 2016, Which? surveyed broadband subscribers, and one telecommunications giant received 2 stars for its customer services, and was reported as ‘tricky to contact’, a huge put-off for any potential new customers. On the other hand, the top-rated companies in the survey were found to be quick and easy to contact.
The golden mean
So what can businesses do to ensure that the customer experience they offer is always up to scratch? How can they avoid unnecessary customer churn due to dissatisfaction with the customer experience? And finally, how can queries be answered fast enough to stop customers defecting?
Firstly, businesses need to ensure they have clear systems and the right technology in place to manage the customer experience. These systems can be automated and should provide businesses with a clear view of the customer journey. There are key twists and turns in the customer journey that businesses should be tracking. For instance, a cosmetics company that allows customers to create a digital account where they can save their favourite products, re-order past purchases and see what’s in stock at local stores, over time, creates an accurate picture of each customer’s preferences. The business is therefore able to answer questions such as: does the customer use voucher codes sent via email? Do they prefer to redeem rewards in-store or online? Do they prefer to buy in bulk? And can act accordingly.
All this information can help improve processes across the business, but is critical to managing customer experience. Thanks to technology, live agents are empowered with the full breadth of customer intelligence to really understand the customer they have on the end of the line and offer suitable and rapid response.
A systematic approach
In April 2016, one energy supplier was fined £18m by UK industry watchdog Ofgem after consumers faced “unacceptably” long call waiting times over a two-year period, with many calling several times before getting through, as the company worked on implementing a new IT system. The company had failed to consider how consumers would be affected by the transition, giving the impression that customer services is low on its list of priorities.
Companies coast along far too often simply presuming their customer experience is well managed until an issue arises. Few businesses are actually able to provide evidence of having a systematic approach to customer experience and an even smaller group can show that their approach is based on hard commercial metrics.
The minority of best practice customer experience providers, though, should be able to show that they have an analytics-based understanding of the customer journey, a rigorous approach, a clear methodology and measurable KPI structure which systematically tracks, measures and manages customer interactions.
Unfortunately, without a robust method for analysing customer behaviour and outcomes of customer experience, it is difficult to provide an accurate demonstration of the success of initiatives and deliver top-notch customer experience. Technology has a lot to bring to the table, but cannot stand in isolation from live agent interaction; far too many top board members wish to believe in silver-bullet solutions that will automate the whole process for a song – and risk losing valuable customers.
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Graham Ede is an entrepreneurial CRM and marketing leader with extensive industry recognition. Focused on increasing customer value and ROI through innovative data-driven customer experience solutions, he helped pioneer CRM during the early 1990s within the UK automotive industry through the creation of Ion Group, an award-winning, contact centre-led business. Since then he has covered key leadership roles at Moonriver Group, Arvato Loyalty, where he was CEO, Caddyshack Marketing, Go Response and, most recently, Yonder Digital Group.
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