Is Customer Experience Really Dead?

This is a subject that I have been pondering on for a long while, and it is a subject that seems to really be at the forefront now in the face of our global crisis.

There is so much talk around what ‘Customer Experience’ means exactly. What actually does make up a Customer Experience leader? Is there need for ‘Customer Experience’ leadership or should all members of a leadership team embrace the customer and therefore drive customer centric values across each and every business function? As an industry, is this something that we are doing effectively?

The current global crisis has changed ‘Customer Experience’, potentially forever. What does the customers view of the world now look like with regards to expectations from product and service providers?

I was talking to a significant industry leader just yesterday about this specifically, and it was their view that ‘Customer Experience’ will be less important to customers post COVID19. Customers may not care about a ‘wow’ factor, as we go back to basics and provide products and services that provide value for money, with a service proposition that is top class. Cost will certainly be a factor, now and in the immediate future, post COVID19. How will our industry adapt to the differing customers views of the world? How will ‘Customer Experience’ as a function change to adapt to the new world?

Customer Experience has changed so much over the last decade, becoming much more sophisticated as a function, and becoming very popular for senior leaders and businesses to advocate. Customers have been really loyal to brands who have gone the extra mile and provided that ‘wow’ factor. Will customers now demand that the ‘bells and whistles’ are dropped, in favour of providing a more cost effective and basic customer service?

Also, it is the opinion of many individuals that the words ‘Customer Experience’ seem to have become ‘buzz words’ without any real meaning. Customer Experience Practitioners are popping up all over the place, without any real background in dealing with consumers. Businesses have been hiring Customer Experience leaders for a long while that actually have no real decision making capacity. Even hiring Customer Experience roles that have zero impact on making the ‘Customer Experience’ better at all.

I see both sides of the coin and there certainly are some businesses that have super slick Customer Experience functions, that do provide real value to the customer. Customers are becoming much more aware of companies social purposes and core ethics and values. Sustainability and the environment are becoming more and more important to customers, and businesses with good Customer Experience strategies are switched on to this. Still, many businesses do not use or harness data to their full potential, providing opportunity for Customer Experience leaders to really identify what matters to a customer and then make a business’ product and proposition more attractive to the customer. 

Is Customer Experience really dead? Or is it just changing? Customer satisfaction is at its lowest since July 2015, as per The Customer Satisfaction Index, January 2020. Is this an opportunity for businesses to again differentiate against their competitors? Or is providing the most cost effective product or service going to be the most important differentiator moving forward?

Interested to hear your thoughts on this, and what the words ‘Customer Experience’ really mean to you and your organisation.

Direct Dial: 01543 231072

E-mail: hannah@douglas-jackson.com

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Hannah-Louise Cox is a Senior Recruitment Consultant and Executive Search Consultant at Douglas Jackson specialising in recruiting executive level, senior Director and management appointments across operations, strategy, transformation, Customer Contact, Digital and Customer Experience.

Source: https://douglasjacksonrecruitment.wordpress.com/2020/05/28/is-customer-experience-really-dead/

2023 Buyers Guide

Get Listed

IVR

 

1.)

Premium Listing Call Center Studio Call Center Studio Call Center Studio is the world’s first call center built on Google and is one of the most secure and stable systems with some of the industry’s best reporting. It is one of the most full-featured enterprise grade systems (with the most calling features, one of the best call distribution, outbound dialing features and integrations—including IVR, AI Speech Recognition, blended inbound/outbound calling and includes Google’s new Dialogflow and Speech API. Call Center Studio is the absolute easiest to use (with a 10 minute setup), and is the price performance leader with lower equipment cost and less setup time.

2.)	Computer Data Services, LLC VIRTUAL PBX Get the benefits of an expensive, on-premise telephone system without the high price tag and annoying maintenance. - Never miss another phone call - No more busy signals - Feature rich - Answer your calls from anywhere

3.)	eGain Corporation eGain SmartIVR eGain SmartIVR is an over-the-top solution to modernize IVR systems. Businesses can offer smartphone callers an easy choice to resolve queries via digital messaging and intelligent self-service. And they can optimize the IVR experience with end-to-end analytics.

4.)

Megacall Virtual Switchboard Megacall provides a fully customised Virtual Switchboard software for all companies (including IVR service). No matter the size of your business, our services adapt to the needs of each client. Are you looking for a more effective way to communicate with your customers? Discover the advantages of using the IVR and how it can help in your communications.

5.)	MightyCall MightyCall's IVR that will increase your business’s efficiency at a fraction of the cost of a secretary. Your auto-attendant is designed to: - Greet callers - Deliver necessary information - Forward calls to the appropriate extension - Take human error out of the system

6.)

Nuxiba Technologies CenterWare Provide your customers with an effortless self-service experience. Easily create menus using predefined or custom prompts and data dips and route customers to live agents when needed. Enable your customers to make payments and access information 24/7 at their convenience. Request a quote or live demo today.

7.)

OpsTel Services SPEED The SPEED solution solves for service level issues while cost optimizing the environment with automation. Provides an enhanced way to speed up & optimize invoking temporary agent skills configuration changes into the contact center environment. Speed allows you to schedule both future changes & temporary changes that auto-revert back to the original state when scheduled time expires. Speed features: *Automated / Scheduled Temporary Agent Skills Configuration Management *Immediate Temporary or Reoccurring Schedule Skills Configuration Changes *Easy to Use/Operations Administration Focused *Descriptive Monitoring Activity Dashboard *Detailed “End to End’ Audit Trail and Performance Monitoring

8.)

PEC Telecom Virtual Phone Numbers (DID) and Business VoIP Phone Service Whether a customer is running a Call Center business, an IVR system to take phone orders or a voice mail service bureau, he still needs inbound lines and access numbers (DIDs). These lines and DIDs give customers the ability to call in and use the service. Traditionally, these lines and DIDs were obtained through the local telephone company (i.e. Verizon, AT&T or Time Warner) and a company could only purchase numbers with area codes in the region the system resided. With VoIP, this has changed. DID Live is an IP DID service that allows you to accept incoming calls via VoIP as an alternative to standard digital or analog lines. The service provides the same quality of sound you expect from... (read more)Whether a customer is running a Call Center business, an IVR system to take phone orders or a voice mail service bureau, he still needs inbound lines and access numbers (DIDs). These lines and DIDs give customers the ability to call in and use the service. Traditionally, these lines and DIDs were obtained through the local telephone company (i.e. Verizon, AT&T or Time Warner) and a company could only purchase numbers with area codes in the region the system resided. With VoIP, this has changed. DID Live is an IP DID service that allows you to accept incoming calls via VoIP as an alternative to standard digital or analog lines. The service provides the same quality of sound you expect from standard lines at a fraction of the price. In addition, it allows you to purchase DIDs all over the United States. A company in California can purchase access numbers in New York or Texas for the same price as access numbers in its local area. This feature gives the company the opportunity to provide local access numbers to its customers around the United States at a fraction of the cost of traditional phone lines and access numbers. Local phone companies often take weeks or months to install phone lines at a company's location; and in many cases they are unable to install more than a few lines do to physical limitations. The DID Live Virtual Number service only requires a company to have an Internet connection, therefore eliminating the limitations posed by local telephone lines. If the company has a solid Internet Connection, the DID Live service can be up and running within hours.

9.)

Pointel Voice self-service can reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction. As with every system implementation, it is not the software, but the implementation that will define the success of the project. This also holds true for self-service implementations. Pointel follows a unique and proven process to implement voice self service. This process has been fine-tuned through years of experience implementing contact center and self-service applications. Pointel can design and develop solutions that will meet and exceed our client’s voice application needs. With several years of experience in Genesys GVP(Genesys Voice Platform) implementation and integration, Pointel can provide an integrated voice... (read more)Voice self-service can reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction. As with every system implementation, it is not the software, but the implementation that will define the success of the project. This also holds true for self-service implementations. Pointel follows a unique and proven process to implement voice self service. This process has been fine-tuned through years of experience implementing contact center and self-service applications. Pointel can design and develop solutions that will meet and exceed our client’s voice application needs. With several years of experience in Genesys GVP(Genesys Voice Platform) implementation and integration, Pointel can provide an integrated voice self-service application to improve overall customer experience. Why Pointel? Extensive experience in implementing and integrating IVR and CTI/CRM applications Specialized in implementing contact center solutions using Genesys Genesys premier consulting partner Worked with Fortune 500 customers building voice self-service applications and integrating front office and back office applications including data retrieval from Mainframe-based systems Experience in building applications using VXML and custom self-service speech grammars Follows best practices in implementing voice self service applications Experience with self-service products such as Service Ware, Motive and Kanisa Developed products using Genesys GVP to provide voice self-service Reputation of 100% success in all implementations with a 100% reference-able customer base Partner with Nuance and Microsoft for developing speech applications

10.)

Teckinfo Solutions Pvt. Ltd. IVR Edge IVR Edge is a high performance, robust and scalable ivr system that works on various leading hardware such as Dialogic, Keygoe and Synway etc. It can handle the simplest of simple to the most complex of requirements to when it come to creating an IVR. Integration with any 3rd party database, be it for banking, telecom, insurance, travel, payment gateway etc can be handled with ease. Ideally suited to create Hosted IVR and virtual patching solutions with scalabilities that can range from 4 to 128 E1’s per setup with voice recording and CDR functionality. Integration with leading text to speech (TTS) and speech recognition ASR engines add to the flexibility and functionality.

 

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