Improving Customer Experience: Moving from Ideas to Actions
Organizations, large and small, have launched initiatives and projects aimed at improving the experiences they provide to their customers and channels.
While the notion of the customer experience is not new, the energy and action the business world is devoting to this area has reached new levels. More and more companies have senior executives with the word “customer” in their titles.
More organizational changes are designed to increase the focus on the customer, and more IT projects are tied directly to improving the customer experience. The collective activities of the business world truly make the customer experience one of the top imperatives for 2021 and beyond.
The obvious question is, why now? What has caused customer-centric strategies and the customer experience to move from ideas to actions?
Customer Experience: a Flurry of Activity
The reason for the flurry of activity, today, can be traced to the opportunities and threats related to customers, partners and costs. Customers were once resigned to mediocre response times, customer communications and service. But times have changed.
Customers are now used to rapid responses, mobile interactions and personalized communications and documents based on their experiences with other industries and companies like Amazon, Apple and Costco. Partners are looking for ease of doing business with companies.
If partners are not provided with a modern, digital experience, they will shift their business to other companies. Ultimately, profits are directly influenced by improving the customer/partner experience. Satisfaction is higher. Retention is higher. More cross-selling opportunities exist. And, partners are likely to do more business. All of that contributes to increased sales and profits.
Get Ahead of the Curve by Enhancing Customer Experience
Although the world was already moving toward improving the customer experience, recent experiences due to the COVID-19 pandemic will certainly accelerate customer expectations. Business processes that are inefficient or at a heightened risk of failure, such as customer communications that involve paper, will demand immediate attention.
Businesses that are just now beginning to rethink their manual, paper-laden communications processes, and systems that rely heavily on human intervention are already behind the curve.