A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives: a curated forum reserved for leaders nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the Construction Tech Review Advisory Board.
Watercare Services Limited
Experience Centricity is the Real CX Game Changer
Amanda Singleton
Creating memorable experiences is best done with the people they’re meant to serve. Stringing together processes that suit our preferred style of working or, even worse, are predetermined by the vendors who provide our core systems, is no longer good enough. What does work, is getting comfortable being in the uncomfortable space of working with our customers to co-design experiences that will best suit them. It is easier said than done. The real challenge with the doing, is the sense of handing ‘overpower’ that comes with it – the sense that we’re no longer in control. And it’s true, we are indeed handing power to the customer, but the reward when you’re getting it right is oh so sweet.
Next, we work with our staff to design the internal processes that will best deliver those customer experiences.
The customer facing team can only be successful if they are able to articulate not only their immediate requirements but more importantly, their long-term strategy to their partners in technology
Just like customers, our staff will be looking for experiences and processes that are simple, effortless, intuitive and value them as individuals. At the simplest level it means customers don’t want to contact us to find out what their account balance is or go through several painful steps to settle that balance. By the same token, our staff doesn’t want to spend their days looking up account balances when they could be having much more value adding interactions with customers who really need to speak to a real human being.
Knowing which customers want to look at an account balance at which time of the month and delivering that information to them through their preferred channel is no longer on the higher end of the innovative engagement spectrum. It requires a few basic algorithms and equally basic process automation and voila, the customer feels understood and catered for and it frees up staff to have meaningful conversations with customers who have more complex, or emotionally charged, issues to solve.
The customer facing team can only be successful if they are able to articulate not only their immediate requirements but more importantly, their long-term strategy to their partners in technology. All too often technology partners are expected to provide the silver bullet to great customer experiences in the complete absence of a customer strategy. That’s when the vendor defined systems and processes get introduced and when customers and staff must “fit in” with the best efforts of technologists.
Customer strategies have value only when built on insights derived from connecting several dots, which are not always as obvious as the standard weekly contact centre reports. If design thinking is not part of the dot connecting process, you are more than likely on the wrong track. While involving customers and frontline staff in designing your operating model is not always easy, it is no longer optional.
The articles from these contributors are based on their personal expertise and viewpoints, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their employers or affiliated organizations.
