This book provides a well-founded and with a view to the concrete implementation, how companies and brands can achieve a high level of customer experience (CX) in today’s dynamic world.
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There are good approaches to customer service, but the holistic customer experience is not yet the focus for some. Companies still have to exploit their full potential and recognize the advantages of higher customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and more efficient customer acquisition. ESG’s market research also found a direct correlation between high CX maturity and greater business success, especially in areas such as market share, increasing customer spend and management support for customer experience teams.
How can companies score with customer experience in the corona crisis?
Our Evaluation of the effects of the pandemic on support shows that the volume of inquiries among companies is more volatile and larger than ever before. In Europe alone, it is 16 percent higher than before the pandemic. The challenge: reacting to this development and at the same time keeping the service level at a high level. This succeeds with the introduction of a help center. In this way, recurring questions such as delivery costs or cancellation conditions can be answered.
In addition, customers want to decide how they will be addressed – and that is increasingly via messaging. Between February and October 2020 alone, the number of inquiries via channels such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, direct messages on Twitter or SMS rose by almost 50 percent. Brands need to replicate online the service they would otherwise provide in person. Virtual tools such as video advice or the exchange of images via messaging platforms can be helpful.
How do executives assess the influence of customer experience on business success?
In the ESG study, we examined the relationship between a high-quality customer experience and business success. As a result, the CX champions received more investment and management support than other companies. Managers at the champions of medium-sized and large companies are three or four times more likely to see customer service as a differentiating factor than at the CX starters. Hopefully, perceiving this relationship will help companies learn from those who are ahead on the CX maturity scale.
Investments are scaled down in difficult economic times. When it comes to customer experience, is that a good idea?
It is understandable. However, our research with ESG found a link between CX peak performance and business growth. Champions-level organizations not only see better results on traditional service metrics such as time to problem resolution and customer satisfaction, but can also see improvements in business outcomes such as spend and customer loyalty. The CX champions are three or four times more likely to increase their market share than the starters, and they are even 7.3 times more likely to increase expenditure per customer. Investing in a good customer experience pays off.
Despite this uncertain time, we see the champions continue to invest in improving their customer experience. Over the next twelve months, the champions are 14.3 times more likely than the starters to expect to increase their investment in tools and technology. This poses a challenge for the starters: you don’t just have to try to catch up with the champions to stay competitive. They also risk falling further behind if they scale back their investments amid increased competition.
Which CX champions should companies orientate themselves towards in terms of best practice examples and why?
A good example of how companies can offer an excellent customer experience despite difficult times is the HR software provider Personio. When the first wave of pandemics hit, the Personio support team helped its customers to quickly adapt their HR processes, introduce short-time work and answer all immediate questions. This enabled companies to ensure that their employees felt safe and well informed. At the same time, Personio’s customer satisfaction remained the same despite the massive increase in inquiries. The reason for this: Personio had set up a help center for its customers, who could use this self-service offer to obtain information themselves or to contact the Personio support team directly if necessary.
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