Bell Business Insights newsletter

Top 10 ways to improve your customer experience

Over the past year, organizations of all kinds have pursued cost-cutting measures with great zeal, sometimes to the detriment of the user experience. But a better experience itself translates into lower costs on several fronts, not to mention the surprising financial impact that increased loyalty brings to the bottom line: reducing churn by 5% can deliver a return on the order of 25 to 100%.

Following are top ways that you can improve your organization’s user experience:

1.  An inviting front door
How are users greeted when they get in touch? An organization’s front door is likely to be an automated voice application or Web site. Here are some ways to improve the experience from first contact:

• Use open call steering as a more flexible alternative to the traditional voice self-service menu
• Route simple, low value calls to self-service while routing complex calls to the right agents with the right skill sets
• Consolidate all customer-relevant information for customer service representatives (CSRs) in one interface
• Use analytics to profile customer behaviour: what are the top end goals of your Web site visitors?
• Improve usability to bring the most important links and page information to the fore
• Incorporating powerful search capability effectively connects customers with what they seek
• Enable customers to resolve most common issues online

2.  First contact resolution
Save money and keep users happy by resolving issues in the first interaction. Sounds great, but how is that possible? Studies show that an inability to reach the right person with the right information drives more than half of customer service dissatisfaction. Here are some ways to provide satisfaction on the first call:

• Customer-centric routing enables you to offer the best customer experience to your best customers
• Providing CSRs with customer context regardless of medium allows them to react more quickly with the right tools
• CSRs with efficient search capabilities can access the right information more quickly
• Online collaboration tools like instant messaging and the ability to see whether experts are available will speed access to key resources
• Use anytime, anywhere e-learning with comprehension testing to keep CSRs up to date
• Provide universal access to a single knowledge base so that customers and CSRs are on the same page

3.  Optimize agent resources
Long waiting times still have the greatest adverse impact on customer satisfaction. The obvious solution is to expand the pool of agents, but does that always make sense? Here are some options:

• Reduce contact centre load by making more of the enterprise customer-facing
• Make use of workforce management tools to optimize timing and responsibilities of CSRs
• Virtualize contact centre operations to make best use of all contact centre assets, regardless of location
• Connect subject matter experts in remote branches with customer inquiries

4.  Analyze abandoned calls
The average rate of call abandonment in contact centers across the globe is 12%. Addressing this issue presents a real opportunity to improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs and grow revenue. Consider the following techniques:

• A cradle-to-grave reporting system tracks all data regarding each call or interaction, allowing you to implement a rescue strategy customized to the value of the customer
• Keeping a record of each abandoned call gives CSRs the opportunity to show empathy and to find out the reason for abandonment at next contact

5.  Measure to manage
Do you measure the success of the customer experience or use analytics tools to understand the root causes of dissatisfaction?

48% of consumers say that customer service has the greatest impact on their loyalty to a company. But to manage the experience you have to measure, as the saying goes. If you haven’t benchmarked levels of satisfaction in various areas, if you’re not measuring loyalty and other key metrics, your first step is to define the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will measure the health of the customer experience.

6.  Reactive to proactive
All organizations need to improve the customer experience on an ongoing basis. But proactive techniques can make a measurable difference to satisfaction. Consider these statistics:

• For 30% of online transactions, consumers want to speak to someone before buying
• 87% of consumers have a more positive opinion of a company after receiving a call of thanks or to inquire about satisfaction
• Click-to-talk and click-to-chat can improve sales conversation rate by 50%

7.  Cross-channel service delivery
Have you transcended the silo? Customers expect consistent service across all channels, and to be able to switch from one channel to another without needing to repeat themselves. The following techniques can help you to provide uniform service delivery:

• Use universal queue routing for inquiries from all channels. It can help to meet service level goals and connect customers to the right agent with the right skills
• Performance management tools will track performance for each channel in real time, helping you to stay on track
• Make sure that CSRs are provided with context for the contact regardless of the selected channel
• Pull data from legacy systems to provide CSRs with useful contextual data

8.  Personalization
Personalization goes far beyond putting a first name into form letters and emails. It’s about delivering the right content to the right person at the right time; across interactions, throughout the full customer lifecycle. To do this you need to understand and respond to customer needs and show them that they are valued. Some ways to make this happen:

• Use profile management to store key customer attributes (personas) and leverage user behaviour and preferences in each interaction. The result is a custom experience, integrated across the Web, email and contact centre that feels customized for the individual but is actually automatically driven
• Train CSRs to find a common bond between themselves and callers – it is an excellent way to build customer relationships and loyalty
• Demographic matching and intelligent call routing boosts the customer experience by preparing the CSR for a given type of contact. You can also train CSRs to specialize in a certain demographic or value customer

9.  Improved shopping online
We have reached a point where the volume of offline sales influenced by Internet is greater than the volume of online sales alone. Since 58% of product research and 25% of all purchases begin online, getting it right is critical. Here are ways to improve sales, both on and offline, starting with the Web:

• Concentrate on creating a richer, more captivating online experience by moving beyond the basic functionality of e-commerce. Product reviews, comparisons, blogs and expert opinion all help to create a tighter online community
• Brand has much to do with attracting users. Use solid strategy, search engine optimization and search engine marketing as well as social media tools to attract and retain visitors while building brand perception
• Convert browsers into buyers with merchandising, searchandising, personalization and assisted care
• Developing efficient cross-selling strategies to drive more prospects online
• Use Web analytics to measure campaign results, click path and more

10.  Transform business processes
A staggering 85% of all quality problems come from bad processes, with only 15% directly linked to employees. The answer is finding better ways of working that return an equal or better result for the customer.

The greatest value can be had in tackling cross-silo processes with business transformation methodologies based on lean principles. The basic idea is to reduce the 7 kinds of waste: motion, inventory, processing, latency, etc. – producing substantial gains:

• 15 to 50% improvement in employee productivity
• 30 to 70% decrease in cycle time
• 25 to 50% improvement in quality
• 30 to 50% gain in space requirements

These are just a few of the ways that the customer experience can be improved. While the most effective combination of tools will depend on your organization’s particular situation, one thing to keep in mind is that an improved customer experience requires focus across the organization, starting with upper management.

Want to get your customer experience to the next level? Bell takes a holistic view and brings deep resources to bear on your particular situation. From analysis to business transformation to analytics implementation and Web 2.0 solutions, we can help you to fine-tune the customer experience at all stages. To find out more, contact your Bell representative or have a Bell representative contact you.