CX: You need to improve again
If you Google customer experience (CX) you’ll get about 5,050,000,000 results, yes that right over 5 billion articles, videos, and reports. There is no question that CX is a topic that has been “done to death” but despite that, interest in CX continues to grow and it’s not predicted to slow down anytime soon.
When Econsultancy and Adobe conducted their Annual Digital Trends report, they asked B2B companies to state the single most exciting opportunity for 2020. CX came in first, beating content marketing, video marketing and social.
I’ve been involved with CX for over 30 years; primarily in helping, organisations deploy technologies to improve CX. I have never experienced a more exciting time than right now, and the reason is that CX game-changing technologies are emerging at unprecedented speed. Digital devices of all sorts, global connectivity, cloud services, smartphones, and AI-based software, are just the building blocks.
Personalisation is the name of the game and if you can’t deliver relevant, appropriate, tailored, and increasingly frictionless experiences, your business is likely to be facing trouble. A very important point about commerce in 2020 is that your customers don’t just compare your company to your competitors, they compare the CX you provide to that provided world-leading companies in other industries.
That’s right, you will almost certainly need to improve the CX you deliver, regardless of how good you think it is right now. The essence of CX has remained the same over the decades, however, what it looks like now is significantly different, i.e. if you do what would have been world-class in 2015 today, customers will yawn and probably roll their eyes, particularly if you make a song and dance about it.
A few examples of how the bar has risen; In some Disney theme parks, the wristbands (which are also tickets and room keys) monitor where you are in the park to route you around busy areas to things you have a preference for. Insurance companies use mobile phone apps to track customers driving habits and history, which helps predict their risk of being in an accident, enables more personalised car insurance policies, and encourages better driving habits. As most of you will know, Netflix recommends shows based on each viewer’s preferences, demographics and watch history. Seventy-five percent of what people watch on Netflix comes from recommendations. Amazon also tracks each customer’s viewing and purchase history to try and find just the right products to recommend. An incredible 35% of Amazon sales come from recommendations. If you were to own an AI-enhanced BMW, the car uses continuous machine learning to automatically adjust the systems and cabin experience for each driver.
Not only are customer expectations significantly higher and rising all the time because of these kinds of experiences, but word of mouth travels a lot faster (thank you the Internet of everything). Customers are empowered like never before. The internet enables customers to research your company, your products and services, your pricing, and your management team, your technical staff (thanks LinkedIn) and your customer testimonials. That’s all before they deal with you. After they have, they can broadcast their perceptions of the experience they had in all manner of social channels and online buyer forums.
Whilst this is just a taste of what’s happening out there, hopefully, you can see why now is an exciting time. Regularly this year I will post short articles on topics related to CX. Topics including the best ways to measure the voice of the customer and the difference between customer service and customer experience, and which companies in NZ are leading in the CX space. I’ll present some of the leading innovations in CX including examples of machine learning, and importantly take a look at how you can measure ROI on your CX initiatives.
I welcome your thoughts and comments on these increasingly important topics.