Enriching customer experience

BANGALORE: Each one of us at some point has had a bad experience when it comes to customer service. Those addressing our problems are often not equipped to handle them and to top it all they have solutions which may not be adaptive to our needs. Examples could be billing issues, network issues or anything pertinent for which we need to rush to a contact point -- a retail store, a customer contact centre or may be even the web.Customer service holds centre stage in a highly competitive business environment, whereas real-time customer experience impacts brand selection. To stay ahead of the curve, organisations need to improve their quality of service to increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).Across the globe, customer service operations are undergoing rapid transition in response to changing demographics, customer needs and expectations, and new technologies for communication and interaction. The traditional approach of segregating issues of people, process and technology into disparate silos across touch points needs a relook. There is an urgent need for a customer aligned, context-aware, 360 degree approach. There is also a pressing need for proper mapping tools or solutions which can provide relevant data on a real-time basis to client organisations. This can help retain the high-value customers and correct poor performance within days rather than months to enhance experience and increase retention.The Frontline: In a world where customers’ expectations impact their experience, there is a growing need to empathise and empower the frontline to deliver a context-aware and positive customer experience. There is also an emerging need to set experience expectations by involving the customers, community and peers on a proactive basis.Says K K Cariapa, co-founder and CEO, Opsbuds, a start up company with an emerging technology which maps customer experience and it’s an innovative concept which sets them apart, “Customer experience is generic to all businesses and can be modelled, analysed, and improved in a planned way. This aids in understanding, analysing, and reducing the gap between customer expectation and the actual delivery at every ‘moment of truth’.”To a customer, service at any point of interaction means the organisation meeting the expectations that they have of it as a brand. Sound customer experience measurement requires proper analysis of the drivers of customer (dis)satisfaction and loyalty.“We believe in providing client organisations the ability to retain the best customers, identify ‘at-risk customers’, and correct poor performance within days rather than months, driving continuous improvements for the frontline. Once implemented, the solution can measure results through evolving experience scores and inform client organisations about the impact on revenue. This is reported through a single dashboard for all levels to drive ownership within and accountability towards the customer,” said Cariapa.CEE : An integrated suite of customer experience enrichment (CEE) solutions for its customers is the need of the hour. CRM solutions tend to offer point solutions for specific customer-facing functions (sales force automation, customer analytics, and campaign management). In contrast, CEM or customer experience management solutions address the cross-channel (contact center, internet, self service, mobile devices, brick and mortar stores), cross-touch point (phone, chat, email, web, in-person), and cross-lifecycle (ordering, fulfillment, billing, support, etc) nature of the customer experience process. “Customer Experience Enrichment encompasses all of the above, with the primary objective of ensuring an enriching experience to the customer every time across all touch points, through evolving benchmarks. The CEE model focuses primarily on enhancing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Shareholder Value (SHV),” said Cariapa.Technology comes to aid: The dynamic business function of customer experience is continually evolving. To remain ahead of competition, every organisation needs to have an end-to-end view of their business processes, systems, tools, technologies, knowledge and customers (both internal and external) beyond the traditional silos, and recognise their inter-related nature.“The need of the hour is to deploy context-aware service strategies across all customer touch points. Using a unique technology platform that captures every interaction with the customer, our solution performs analyses with a 360 degree perspective in real-time, enabling continual improvement of customer experience,” said Cariapa. The solution helps build an ecosystem that delivers enhanced Customer Lifetime Value for client organisations. “The company’s patent pending ‘Space’ model captures customer experience at all touch points and maps them onto ‘Rju’, a unified technology platform, which analyses these inputs in real-time, providing comprehensive updates for all levels of service delivery.This enables organisational leadership to inspire a culture that influences people, process and technology to focus on enriching customer experience at every touch point. Targeted at the Telecom, Retail, BFSI, Healthcare and Hospitality sectors, customised solutions can be deployed across any customer facing market vertical,” said Cariapa.Working with client organisations on a service basis, using technology as an enabler to map and analyse the various parameters of customer experience, the solution of the company acts as an enabler and agent of change in the client organisation. Opsbuds helps in getting the frontline feedback heard and implemented. It engages with client leadership to help empower the frontline to perform better, every time, across all touch points.As a buddy for the frontline, the company is helping in making the process of change easier across all touch points by providing simple and actionable feedback, creating buy-in for change instead of forcing it, and thus enriching customer experience.