EPIC CX & EX: My Guide, how to do it..

It's been a while since I posted an Article but as I receive numerous messages every week asking my thoughts on Customer Contact / Service / Experience (confused already ?), I thought it was time to once again put in writing my rulebook for interacting with customers. This is based on my personal experience and has been consistent across Industries & Sectors.

There is currently a lot of 'new' thinking on the importance of aligning the delivery of great Employee Experiences to deliver great Customer Experiences. This is nothing new at all.  Of Course, Informed, Empowered, Engaged & Motivated Employees will provide customers with better experiences than employees not working in this way.

I first presented over 10 years ago that when interacting with companies Customers want 4 things (E.P.I.C), and to give these great Experiences Employees need 4 things to deliver them (T.I.M.E). 

Technology and channels have moved on immeasurably, but these fundamentals have not. 

Get these fundamentals right, your company will be in that top few that are known for amazing Customer Experiences. So first let me explain...EPIC :

Customers want E.P.I.C Service, no not the cool American buzzword but this:

• EASY - Customers want it to be easy to find an answer themselves, and if they cannot, they want it to be easy to go on and get in touch. They want to feel engaged with, treated with respect and as if you care. Seriously, the lower the effort, the higher the empathy, the better. Make it as easy as possible for them to get in touch if they want to.  Far too many companies make it too hard for customers to find out how to get in touch.
• Also pay careful thought to how many times you make them repeat activities across different channels, often a pain. e.g. If I'm calling, or web-chatting from a signed-in App, you should already know me.
• PERSONALISED - Customers want their experiences to feel relevant to them. So don't present them with generic website articles, standard FAQ's, one size fits all IVR's.  When calling or interacting online present customers with options based on their own enquiry or browsing history, their quotations, their purchases, what has been marketed to them, or their service enquiries, support cases or complaints. 
• FYI This should all be omnichannel based, so if they've made a phone enquiry, been online or visited a store, factor that information into their contact journeys too.
• INTUITIVE - Customers would love their contact journeys to be contextual. So if a customer has a delivery due today that has not yet been delivered, are taking a flight but have not yet checked in, or have just received a Utility bill, consider that within their contact journeys. 
• It's also very important that you consider the 'urgency' of the contact.  If they haven't yet checked in for a flight for which the gate is closing in 15 minutes, don't put them in the same priority queue as a customer wanting to know about their loyalty balance with no current flights booked, just because they're both 'Blue' in your Loyalty scheme.
• Also, if they've just been marketed to, that is very likely to be their reason for contact. It amazes me how often this is not joined up. However, do not lead customers down 'cul-de-sacs' where these are their only journey paths.  Test every journey and think, what if the customer is not phoning about 'x', what can they do ?
• CONTROL - Customers want to be in control of their customer experiences, and not be dictated to, or forced down channels or self-service solutions. They want to choose their contact channel, so don't force them down certain paths first. 
• For example if I'm in the car I will call on hands-free, if I'm in the office I may send a contextual web message (not email - no structure to those), & if I'm at home in front of the TV I may be happy with webchat. 
• Also, let customers choose whether they want to help themselves or talk to an agent, again why force them one particular way. 
• Trust me, most customers want to try and help themselves first, so if you build it well, it will work and more customers will help themselves even if it is easy to get in touch, so you should actually make it really easy for a customer to speak to someone if they want to.  Ask yourself, would you rather customers tell you they're unhappy rather than have them post their frustration on social media or even just take their business elsewhere ?!
• Finally, you should be creating a CRM 'Case' for every customer interaction, so why don't you share access to that record online with your customer too so they can track the progress themselves online 24/7/365 ? That way they will start to Trust you really are looking into their issue or enquiry, and Trust is so important to Loyalty.

So to deliver these EPIC Customer Experiences, Employees need T.I.M.E

Now, let me explain...TIME

1. TIME - Yes the first 'T' does stand for time. Employees cannot deliver great customer experiences if they are not given the time to focus on this customer. If there is pressure to deal with calls in the queue, webchats waiting, customers standing in line, that is not a good environment for the employee to be able to focus on the customer in front of them. 

• Sure the customers waiting need to be recognised & acknowledged (don't you hate that when you're completely ignored), and ideally given options other than just waiting, but that is not helpful for the customer being served right now, and should not be the responsibility of the Customer Experience employee. It is the responsibility of the CX Leaders to build the environment that caters for how to treat customers that have to wait.

1. INFORMATION - Employees cannot help customers quickly and effectively unless they can easily see all the information they need. This should cover their contact history, purchase history, enquiry history, service or complaint history, order status, any offers that have been sent to them, whatever is relevant. 

• This information just has to be omnichannel based not silo'd information. So the employee in the Contact Centre needs to know what has happened in the store / airport / delivery environment, and just as importantly, vice versa. Nothing more frustrating for employees than having to say 'that's a different department', or 'sorry I can't see that information'.
• However, this is also where Context should be brought in. It's usually pretty apparent what the customer wants to talk about, so bring that information to the fore, making it really quick & easy for the employee to find the relevant information or status.
• EMPOWERMENT - Possibly worse than not having the information, is having the information but not being able to 'put things right'. 
• Employees love nothing better than simply being able to do 'what should be done', if they were in charge. I.e. Refund the last month's bill, send some flowers, replace an order with a new and better item....
• There is nothing worse than not being able to help a customer they know has been badly let down. Having to say 'Sorry, that's not our company policy' sucks, when they know the company policy sucks too.
• MOTIVATION - Finally, even with Time, Information & Empowerment, without Motivation the Customer Experience will still fall flat. Imagine a disengaged employee saying 'Yes I'll cancel last month's charges' in an unenthusiastic voice. Or a monotone, 'I'll look into that for you Mr Jones'. 
• Customers need to feel that you care and are committed to help them, employees cannot fake that. So think about how you manage, pay and reward your employees. What gets measured is usually what gets done. So behaviours and rewards should be driven significantly by not only tangible qualitative outcomes but also how the customers felt about how they were treated by the employee.
• Celebrate every day Customers that said 'John was so considerate and caring', 'I was so impressed with how Amanda took care of everything'.. Make it a big deal.

And yes I know the above should be TIEM not TIME, but that doesn't look half as good right ?!

I trust this is helpful, and at the very least you can use this as a tick-list for your 'CX as-is' versus your 'CX Vision'. 

I've never delivered perfection against all of the above, and I don't think even the best companies do so now. But, you should have a Vision, right !?

I've got strong ideas on how to approach all of the above, including Technology, People & Process so please do reach out if I can help...

Keep your Customer Experience EPIC and give your Employees TIME...