8 ways to drive CX transformation

Customer experience (CX) transformation might be pervasive, but it’s not uniform. Some organizations are much farther along the path of improving CX than others. ?

The gap between leaders and followers will only widen. It’s imperative to keep moving forward — harnessing processes, strategies and technologies that produce momentum and provide a competitive edge.?

Here are eight ways to propel your CX transformation journey and ensure forward progress.?

1. Rally around CX?

Align your organization around customer advocacy as essential to long-term business success. Share relatable customer insight to gain buy-in — from the C-suite to the frontline. And use those insights to drive improvements in end-to-end customer journeys and increase the effectiveness of individual customer interactions.?

2. Balance personalized experiences and automation?

Blend a personal touch with digital CX transformation to build stronger customer relationships. In doing so, balance the human and automated elements of the customer experience. One approach is to automate processes that speed resolution times, like using artificial intelligence (AI)-powered automation to support agents during complex interactions, allowing them to be more empathetic while resolving issues faster.?

3. Work holistically?

Build cross-functional teams to align around customer-centric goals and evangelize them internally. These teams can work together to determine which channels to use for specific interaction types, for example. With a cross-team approach, you can build a more seamless experience for agents and customers. And you’ll develop more uniform success measures for continuous improvement.?

4. Take risks using pilot projects to meet customer expectations?

Agility is integral to keeping pace with ever-changing customer expectations and technological innovation. Pilot projects allow you to fail fast and small. From there,you can quickly learn and optimize. These projects also create an environment where you can test everything to ensure there’s no unintended downstream impact.?

5. Be where your customers are?

Consumers and business-to-business customers alike want and expect myriad channel options for service interactions. Additionally, consumers globally say their No. 1 preferred form of personalization is “receiving the services I need in my channel of choice when I need it.”?

Expect the mix of your customers’ preferred channels to shift over time. Research from Genesys found that Gen Z and millennials prefer digital channels like messaging apps, mobile in-app interactions and chatbots significantly more than Gen X and boomers do.??

6. Take care of the people who care for your customers?

Focusing on the employee experience is as important as prioritizing the customer experience. It’s essential to support agents and enable them with AI-powered tools to help them before, during and after service interactions. You also should empower them with learning and development opportunities. CX transformation efforts can stall if customer service agents aren’t brought along on the journey.?

7. Stay true to your course?

Once you've determined the goals for your CX transformation initiatives, stay focused on what’s needed to achieve its desired outcomes. Identify the sequence of changes needed to reach each goal and follow that path. Don’t get sidetracked by shiny objects and nice-to-haves. Instead, be agile enough to test new processes and technologies that could help keep CX transformation initiatives moving forward.?

8. Enjoy the journey??

CX transformation should be ongoing. There will always be new and better ways to support customers and agents as technologies evolve and as processes shift. CX professionals also should expect that whenever they meet their objectives along their CX transformation journey, they’ll need to set new goals — always with one eye to the horizon of what’s possible. ?

Read the “2024 Contact center buyer’s guide” to get insights into how to create the most value for customers, employees and your business.??