Customer Experience Maturity - Experiences from judging at the Israeli CX awards

Last week I was invited to take part as a judge at the annual Customer Experience Excellence Competition Award held by the Israeli Center for Management (HAMIL).

In an evening full of presentations by the leading organizations, which presented one by one the icing on the cake of their activities, I had the privilege of getting a wide glimpse into the field of CX in Israel.

I have collected my 10 main CX insights for 2022.

1 - Wow. What the COVID has done to organizations!

In all the organizations we met – COVID created a shock. The changes in the market put organizations in impossible situations, which forced them to change quickly, take extreme steps and... become much better and turn into more efficient organizations. There is nothing like a global shock to get heavy organizations out of their comfort zone and get the best out of them. Discomfort areas almost always make us much better!

2 - I haven’t even once heard the term "digital transformation"!

I’m so happy we got rid of this unnecessary buzzword. Everyone has moved forward and no one thought "digital transformation" was an exciting concept to mention. For most of the organizations I met -having a digital infrastructures that allow the promotion of cross-departmental digital moves – was a given element.

3 - No more digital-in-favor-digital:

The technology, the digital tools, the user experience, the micro-copy were all put as tools for a better customer experience. They were used as parts of a strategy and were connected to clear and measured ROI models. Some of the organizations' ways of measuring were more impressive and others were still based on classic opinion poll samples, but all organizations showed a goal-oriented approach.

4 - The importance of personal relationships:

One of the issues that stood out to me the most was the importance human relations. There is a growing conversation about technology taking over humans, but almost all success stories have involved an interpersonal component, interpersonal communication, relationship building, dealing with human components and utilizing connections, to drive meaningful moves.

5 - Leaders (especially feminine-leadership) at the head of the activity:

Another dominant element was the charisma and enthusiasm of the team leading each activity. We have seen a million women-power and dominant personas leading promising vision with tons of inspiring positive vibes.

6 - Proactive approach:

A prominent issue was the demonstration of a proactive approach across the projects. Organizations stop waiting for the customer to have a problem or malfunction and initiate the conversation upfront to reduce or avoid upcoming problems. I enjoyed seeing this motif come back again and again.

7 - WhatsApp becomes a major communication tool:

A significant number of organizations have talked about switching to WhatsApp as a direct means of communication to customers. It will be interesting to see next year how communication systems are integrated into WhatsApp as a major tool in relationships. It is amazing to see how much this tool is at the heart of the population in Israel (WhatsApp really is not a communication standard in many other places in the world).

8 - Dealing with the actual application for the CX Award:

The need to document, explain and reason, design a presentation and tell the story - helped organizations to understand what their successful moves were made of and how they affected the organization. If you want to understand for yourself what works for you and what does not - submit your project to a prize. It will serve you well beyond the award itself.

9 - Where can we go from here?

All presented projects were classic customer journey points of contact – Onboarding of a new customer, dealing with a fault, dealing with inquiries, etc. Almost none of the organizations seem to invest an effort to maintain proactive customer retention relationships while everything is fine. They presented a passive approach of “if everything is fine – you won’t hear from us”. I think one of the most untapped opportunities in the industry - is to create added value throughout the life of the customer - especially when there is no problem, and to devote efforts to giving added value at times when the customer needs nothing. The logic is simple. Instead of calculating how good or bad we were in a moment of crisis, problem or customer need, it is worthwhile for us to raise our bar and reach these situations with positive points. I would like to see a measure of increasing the value of the brand for the customer, which is not linked to calls, troubleshooting, response to a problem, etc.

10 - Bonus: I have yet to see the world of audio content go into the stories of organizations.

Lots of people talked about breaking the ice, creating direct communication at eye level, the accuracy of the tone of voice, but no one has yet discovered how audio can do that and skip over the micro-copy efforts with ease.

Apparently, we will have to wait for the 2023 award to see some of that.

#CustomerExperience #CXAward #UserExperience #AudioExperience