Every organization today seeks to gather as much information about a customer as possible. By walking into an organization or just making a phone call, you hardly realize just how much personal information you have left behind. While everyone loves to talk about the significance of data and technology, we still are yet to completely bridge the gap between collecting the data and designing experiences based on this data, or have we?
As a customer care practitioner, I interact on countless times with customers. The reality is that a new dimension of customer experience is here, driven by the endless demands of customers for smarter, faster experiences. Technology has made it easier for us to track customer preferences and history and to utilize customer data to establish trends and actionable insights. By the time a customer contacts us with a query, we already have most of their information. Imagine what an amazing experience it is for me and you (as customers) to discover that we can get assistance without having to go through a series of boring questions and answers! This is what I call creating stories that do the talking for you. Customer experience is a story and not just a long boring list of touchpoints. Let’s assist our customers to write better stories.
A rigid attitude should be eliminated if we must deliver great customer experiences. I believe that taking care of our customers is not just the right thing to do, it’s good for business. Today’s customer says “it’s my right to demand great service at every interaction.” Unless a company wants to be recognized as a low-cost provider, the value proposition of good customer service can make price less relevant. This concept is not limited to retail. It crosses into all types of businesses and industries.
The list may be endless however here are some of my key ingredients to provide inspiring customer experiences:
• Keep it simple and personalized. Let each experience be unique even if it relates to the same customer.
• The experience must have a social and empowering feature in it. Modern self-service tools build powerful knowledge bases.
• It must be compelling, smart and consistent for it to bring out the WOW effect. Let it not appear like some well written script performance.
• People are emotional beings and they expect customer service to be authentic and human. We need to develop unique approaches for dealing with different emotions across customer segments.
• Focus should be on customer success. Establish and make it visible, the link between customer success and organization success.
Market research and analysis of big data has played a key role in helping me to stay in tune with the customers I serve and to keep up with market trends. Our GIS technology has enabled us to continue building a customer – centric approach where our products are offered based on feedback from our customers.
Deriving useful information from big data is the next big frontier being mined by organizations in search of trends and patterns that support informed decision making. Ultimately, it’s those simple acts that if done consistently will form superb service and help win a customer for life.
Article written by:-
Hellen Omondi,
Customer Service Representative,
Esri Eastern Africa.
This is a great article articulating the rights of a customer to insist on superior service at any given interaction. The customer is KING.
George, thank you for taking the time to visit our blog and read our articles. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, true customer really is king.
great piece I like
Hi Dennis,thank you for taking the time to read our articles. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Absolutely enlightening piece.Customer expérience is thé key element driving and increasing sales for tech-savvy companies. Hellen is right to promote ingenuity while talking to customers;that causes them to tell great stories about thé company. Thank you Hellen!
Hi Anthony, thank you for taking the time to visit our blog and read our articles. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
This is one of the best articles I have ever read on customer care I hope more of the writers’articles will published to us.
Hi Ann, thank you for taking the time to read this article. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, pls keep visiting the blog we will en devour to keep you well informed.
Wow such an inspiring write-up Keep it up
Great article
Marcus, thank you for taking the time to visit our blog and read our articles. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Very educative and insightful
Thank you Charles for taking the time to read the article.
Great Insight Hellen! This is exactly what we need to act on and deliver better customer service.
Such an informative article, in deed the future of any organization is anchored in its costumers’ experience
Well said Anjeline, thank you.
Wonderful piece Hellen. Just amazing. I’m interested to know more on how big data is uncovering further customer relationship cornerstones that help you make service to them more personalized. You’re a great curator.
Thank you Steve.
This is a very educative article,it has got me thinking of all the possible data we collect,never thought it can be used to tell a clients story.Great article
Thank you Jonathan.
That’s how I just need to be treated as a customer ,afterall what is a business of business?
So very true. The core business of every business is to deliver great customer experiences.
Great piece! I totally agree that “People are emotional beings and they expect customer service to be authentic and human.” That’s why companies should strive to give an exceptional experience at each and every touch point.
Actually we should change the title to the reality of customer service today is Experiences…. Because that is where we are at. Companies are competing on customer experience. Look at Banks, Technology company’s, Insurance Companies et al. We are already in the CX space and those that do not focus on customer experience will be the worse for it. Great article!
Very informative, especially for me, considering that our organization is just starting the customer experience journey. The question is; how do I, being the person responsible for customer service, get my organization and every employee to begin appreciating this approach to customer service?
Hi Paul, allow us to email you membership details, both corporate and individual, then you propose for membership. We also developed customized training for your organisation to help you on this customer experience journey.
great piece of work,,,i loved it.