The Great Digital Shift: Why the new ‘gold standard’ of customer experience is more than just a digital journey
Global PwC analysis shows a third of customers would be willing to leave a brand they loved after a single bad experience. Establishing a solid strategy for a consistent first-class customer experience across every available channel is a must-have for building and retaining long-term brand loyalty, says Laura Mullaney, Customer Director at BGL. But this means far more than simply adding tech deployments to your call centre – she argues the digital experience must deliver excellent journeys and outcomes that leave the customer coming back for more.
The need for a solid digital experience is now a significant differentiator for customers. With customer expectations higher than ever and continuing to rise – particularly when it comes to personalised and timely support – how a company executes its digital strategy is key.
If customers are unimpressed with the overall customer experience, it’s easier than ever for them to simply take their custom to another provider. Businesses that prioritise digital transformation are therefore well-positioned to create highly engaged and satisfied customers through excellent experiences.
The stakes are high – so make excellent experiences your brand differentiator
Digital customer experience can be defined by how a business enables its customers and prospective customers to engage with the products and services it offers online. As customers increasingly choose to interact with businesses through websites, mobile apps and chatbots, it is vital the impact of interactions across all channels is carefully considered, assessing how easy customers find these services to use, and the customer’s general perception of the interactions they have.
Industry research certainly confirms the value placed by customers on both excellent CX and service availability across digital channels:
– According to the Avionos B2B Buyer Report, 90% of buyers would turn to a competitor if a supplier’s digital channels didn’t fit their needs
– Fully engaged customers will give a 23% greater share of their wallet, Gallup analysis shows
– Zendesk research into customer service trends found 70% of organizations see a direct connection between customer service and performance – yet 54% of consumers feel organisations still treat it as an afterthought
Forget channels, think outcomes
These findings reinforce the importance of a strong digital experience across all channels. It has been particularly interesting to witness many companies who have now outright stopped talking in terms of ‘digital’ or ‘channels’ and have instead moved to simply referencing ‘customer experience’, implicitly assuming a high degree of customer autonomy and easy access to products and services.
It is vital that when brands focus on their digital experience, they don’t see this as simply adding new digital tools. Rather, it is an outcome of how customers experience the online journeys and how they access live services when and wherever it is important for them to do so.
The digital experience has significantly shifted how companies think about customer engagement, with the need for continuous analysis of how online activity and live services combine to deliver the overall customer experience. Ever-changing customer demands mean the digital customer experience must be both innovative and highly adaptable. This is why it is more important than ever for any design or journey change to be customer centric.
Excel across every channel at critical touchpoints
To the customer, the channel is often irrelevant. Whether speaking with a company’s representative directly, or engaging via automated digital channels, customers expect a seamless experience. They expect to receive a consistent experience whenever and however they engage with a business. This means that the contact centre must be an integral part of the overall customer journey and not simply remain as a traditional, single channel, telephony-based contact centre.
The value of the assisted service agent is to optimise the customer experience, delivering value to the customer and the business and creating longer-term relationships.
Act now to digitally strengthen contact centre operations
Effective digital transformation for a contact centre should incorporate digital technologies that provide customer insights, enable call deflection, optimise personalisation and automation. We need to shift the ‘traditional call centre’ model into one that can genuinely be described as a contact centre of the future.
Deploy these technologies in a mindful, customer-centric manner that simplifies and enhances the customer journey, and excellent customer experience can become a true differentiator for your business.
Laura Mullaney is Customer Director at BGL
BGL Group is a leading digital distributor of insurance and household financial services to more than 10 million customers. The Group is organised in two Divisions: Price Comparison and Insurance, Distribution and Outsourcing (IDO).
The Price Comparison Division offers customers access to a growing range of car, home insurance and breadth products (including life, travel, energy and pet insurance as well as utilities and money products). comparethemarket.com is one of the UK’s leading price comparison sites and LesFurets.com is a leading player in the French market.
IDO provides a range of motor, home and life insurance products in partnership with several of the best-known brands in UK financial services and through own brands Budget Insurance, Dial Direct and Beagle Street, all supported by state-of-the-art contact centres and digital platforms.
For additional information on BGL visit their Wesite
