Staying Ahead of Customer Expectations

The Lighter Side

The only thing faster than delivery times these days is the speed at which customer expectations are rising!

See You at X4

Farlinium is a Silver Sponsor of Qualtrics' X4 Summit in Salt Lake City, May 1-3, 2024. We hope to see you there. Several of our team members will be attending, and some of our clients will present during sessions at the conference, sharing the problems they solved and how. We can't wait. Let us know if you are going to be there, too.

How Financial Institutions Can Improve CX in the Digital Age

Elizabeth Tobey writes about this in Global Banking & Finance Review , noting that financial institutions "need to take a holistic, strategic approach that considers digital’s impact on all aspects of the business, leading to a complete change in how things are done. It is no small feat."

We see how true this is with many of the banks and other financial service industry (FSI) organizations we work with. We heard a case study at CX Horizons in November about how one regional bank recognized the barriers and worked through them. Just this week, our own Jessica Z. wrote about one important aspect: Elevating Customer Experience in Banking While Protecting PII.

Elizabeth mentioned many of the same issues we see FIs facing, including:

• Increased competition from digital-only banks and struggling to retain customers in the digital age.
• Operating with data silos, hindering innovation and requiring significant staff time to access necessary data and insights.
• Compliance and regulatory pressures are on the rise, and legacy solutions and manual monitoring are insufficient to meet these challenges.

She mentions some steps to take:

• Develop a holistic, digital-first strategy that considers the impact of digital transformation on all aspects of the business, leading to an organizational shift.
• Deliver an omnichannel approach, offering exceptional service through both in-person and digital channels, including agent-assisted and unassisted interactions.
• Educate customers by providing easily accessible information, such as an AI-powered FAQ bot, to reduce call volumes and enhance the customer experience.
• Implement purpose-built AI trained on industry-specific data and designed with appropriate guardrails to generate accurate, relevant insights and drive intelligent bots for premier digital banking.
• Eliminate data silos and provide a training ground for AI to learn from all managed interactions.
• Address compliance and risk management by leveraging AI to transform real-time monitoring, issue reporting, and solution offering while providing a robust paper trail for regulators.

The FSI has unique challenges delivering top-notch customer experiences, but we see first-hand how it can be done and the impact it has. Look for more lessons-learned articles in the coming months at CX Horizons .

How These Organizations Make Onboarding an Unforgettable Experience

Customer experience is directly tied to employee experience. It is a two-way street. Happy customers=happy employees, and happy employees=happy customers. But it isn't a chicken or egg situation. Both are worked on simultaneously and, for employees, it starts when they start.

Conlan Carter writes about how 卡特彼勒 and IMC Trading improved employee onboarding. Some key steps they implemented include:

• Provide a detailed 30-60-90 day onboarding plan to help new hires integrate into the company culture and understand their job
• Organize expert-led knowledge sessions about various departments
• Invite new hires to a two-day in-person onboarding event with facility tours, hands-on experience with Cat machines, and presentations from each department
• Send new hires abroad for a 2-month "Global Traineeship" to learn about trading through games, projects, lectures, and mentorship from full-time traders
• Provide opportunities to experience local cultures during the traineeship

Both organizations also provide opportunities to be involved early in consequential projects.

Dimple Moradia , a senior digital project manager at Cat, recounts, "Cat Digital is using the latest digital technologies to improve the customer experience and enable our partners. To best serve Cat customers and dealers, we must understand their habits, needs, and preferences, especially in e-commerce platforms. This is where data plays a key role in driving strategic decisions.

"Not long after joining Caterpillar, I was fortunate to be a part of a project that put data in the driver’s seat to support our customers and achieve our critical objectives."

It is great to see Cat understand that knowing both customers and dealers (who are, in a way, also Cat's customers) is key to delivering great customer experiences.

Brian Solmos , a graduate trade at IMC Trading, I was able to lead a small trading investigation on my own over that week, sharing my conclusions with the whole desk. While this was a pretty small win in the grand scheme of things, experiences like this gave me the confidence I needed to start my career strong at IMC and counter some of the imposter syndrome that can come with taking on new challenges."

Read the full article here .

Keeping Up with Customer Expectations

Howard Lax, PhD writes about the state of CX, arguing the rise of customer expectations is the biggest factor in a decline in CX quality scores.

Some key takeaways include:

• Customer experience (CX) quality is declining not because companies are delivering worse experiences, but because customer expectations are constantly rising faster than companies can keep up.
• Companies must recognize that CX is relative to customer expectations, which are set by broader experiences beyond their own company's actions. Measuring performance relative to expectations and competitors is crucial.
• The customer experience is an ongoing journey taking place in a dynamic environment of innovation, competition, and rising expectations. Companies must continually strive to improve CX to remain viable.

As he wraps up his article, "Companies don’t really have the option of stepping out of the race if they want to remain viable competitors. So they must run, knowing that no matter how fast they run, most of them will not run faster than the pace of expectations." Read the full article here .

The Integral Role of Non-Customer-Facing Teams in Customer-Centric Success

Chris Hood writes, "Customer-centricity has emerged as a non-negotiable pillar for organizational success. However, the common misconception that customer satisfaction and loyalty are solely the responsibility of customer-facing teams is a narrow view that undermines the collective effort required to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Regardless of their role, every individual in an organization plays a crucial part in shaping the customer journey."

He then dives into different functional areas and changes organizations can implement to foster a customer-centric culture:

• Leadership: Schedule regular "customer days" where leaders interact directly with customers to gain firsthand insights and demonstrate the importance of being customer-focused.
• Human Resources (HR): Develop and integrate a customer-centricity module into all employee onboarding and training programs.
• Operations: Implement regular reviews of operational processes to identify areas for improvement that can lead to faster and more reliable customer service.
• Information Technology (IT): Establish a feedback loop between IT, customer service, and customers to gather insights and prioritize technology updates that enhance the customer experience. Integrate customer success principles into digital strategy planning.
• Legal: Conduct a thorough review of customer-facing legal documents to ensure clarity and simplicity, making them easily understandable for customers. Reinforce the importance of data protection and privacy measures.
• Research and Development (R&D): Adopt a Design Thinking approach to integrate customer feedback into the early stages of product development.
• Quality Assurance (QA): Integrate customer feedback into quality metrics and actively involve customers in the QA process through open beta testing.
• Supply Chain: Incorporate AI into end-to-end supply chain process analysis to identify bottlenecks or delays affecting delivery times. Use AI-driven insights to implement solutions that improve speed and reliability.
• Procurement: Develop criteria for supplier selection that include evaluating their customer service practices and track record of delivering high-quality products.
• Facilities Management: Conduct regular audits of physical spaces to ensure they are customer-friendly and make improvements based on feedback from employees and visitors.

Read his full article here .

About CX Horizons

CX Horizons is a free publication from us here at Farlinium to help share insights from our team and others on elevating customer experiences. It is published here on LinkedIn; you can subscribe to receive it directly in your inbox.