The accelerating shift to a digital world is compelling businesses to rethink their customer experience strategy. Xavier Martin, Vice President, Market Development at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, explains.
Companies face the challenge of balancing new communication habits driven by electronic media and social networks while maintaining the tangible warmth of person-to-person exchanges. Survival often hinges on resolving this dichotomy to excel in customer relations.
To meet the demands of customers today, companies should embrace technology and artificial intelligence (AI). This evolution in customer relationship management has been happening for the last two decades, becoming even more critical in our new digital era.
Providing prompt and satisfactory responses remains paramount for customer-oriented companies. Many have invested in integrating CRM tools to personalise interactions and address customer issues effectively.
The communication landscape has expanded beyond calls, with multi-channel options becoming the norm. Social networks, email, and bots are gaining ground alongside traditional telephone communication. The future focus will be on developing intelligent robots to complement human advisors in customer interactions.
Ultimately, the quest for excellence in customer satisfaction is driven by technological advancements, particularly AI, providing a renewed impetus for companies to adapt and thrive in the digital era.
Embarking on a journey to redefine customer service management, here are the five pillars that will pave the way for unparalleled customer experiences and success:
1. 360° customer experience
In today’s context-driven interactions, personalised and useful information plays a crucial role in resolving customer issues efficiently and progressing workflows seamlessly. However, there is a wealth of untapped data, both structured (numbers, dates) and unstructured (emotions, events), which often remains unutilised in existing systems.
This missed opportunity not only frustrates customers who must repeat themselves, but it also hinders businesses from reacting swiftly and identifying potential commercial prospects.
To achieve a true 360° customer experience, it is imperative to empower advisors not just with existing data but also with the capability to collect and leverage new information. By embracing this comprehensive approach, businesses can enrich future dialogues, taking customer interactions to the next level.
2. Self-service revolution
The concept of self-service has evolved dramatically with the advent of AI. While Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems were once limited to basic tasks, the emergence of intelligent conversational robots has transformed self-service capabilities.
These advanced voice bots, equipped with reasoning capabilities, can handle complex tasks beyond mundane queries, making them highly valuable, especially outside regular business hours when human agents may be scarce. With improved voice recognition technology, these bots create a more humanised interaction experience, pushing the boundaries of self-service applications. By incorporating AI-powered voice bots into their customer service strategy, businesses achieve greater efficiency and customer satisfaction.
3. Sentiment analysis
One of the most intriguing technological advancements is sentiment analysis, which goes beyond capturing raw information to discern the emotions and feelings underlying natural language in customer interactions. Emotions hold significant importance in any customer experience, and therefore deploying such technologies is crucial.
Presently, it is possible to extract sentiment, positive, negative, or neutral, from various communication channels such as emails or voice calls. Advanced analysis even allows for nuanced assessments, such as “very positive” or “very negative”. However, this process is complex and requires careful understanding, linking, and interpretation of the sentiment with specific themes.
When used effectively, sentiment analysis enhances the quality of customer relations, enabling personalised responses and tailored solutions.
4. Extended enterprise
The concept of an extended enterprise revolves around opening customer relations to the entire organisation. This involves, sharing, understanding, and embracing a customer satisfaction strategy across all employees, from the private sector to public institutions. In some businesses, horizontal extension is already present, mobilising all staff during predictable peaks in demand, such as holidays.
However, the future lies in vertical extension, where experts work alongside frontline employees continuously, prioritising customer satisfaction as a core objective. Collaborative tools and intuitive platforms facilitate seamless communication and assistance within the extended enterprise. Crucially, for this approach to succeed, it requires the support and commitment of all stakeholders to ensure shared objectives and a customer-centric culture throughout the organisation.
5. Omnichannel challenges
Companies have long considered customer preferences across various engagement channels, encompassing telephony, email, websites, and social media. While the channels have remained relatively consistent, maintaining coherence across all of them remains a challenge.
The goal is to process information independently of its origin, eliminating channel-specific particularities to ensure smooth and effective conversations.
To achieve this, businesses must focus on data integration, analysis, and mobile apps, transcending medium-based limitations. By leveraging a cohesive omnichannel strategy, companies can enhance customer interactions and foster seamless experiences across different touchpoints.
In conclusion, customer service managers face the challenge of balancing electronic media and social networks while maintaining the warmth of person-to-person exchanges. Embracing technology and AI is crucial for meeting customer demands and personalising interactions. The future lies in the 360° customer experience, self-service revolution, sentiment analysis, extended enterprise, and omnichannel strategies, all driving superior customer satisfaction and success in the digital era.
About the Author
Xavier Martin has 25 years of management experience in the software solutions industry, including business intelligence and customer service. He has also authored a book, Make it Personal, that explains how organisations can leverage technology and consumer-led transformation to excel in the digital era of enterprise communications.
