Once a business reaches a certain scale, staying on top of all its customers’ needs or issues experienced across all touchpoints can be a challenge. What a company did when it was small—maintaining close personal relationships with customers or having easy oversight of all the operations—will not work anymore. So how do the leadership team of companies that are scaling up or have already scaled up keep in touch with their customers?
For that reason, businesses that have reached the small-to-medium-enterprise (SME) size threshold or beyond use automated customer experience (CX) platforms to ensure they are still listening to all customers.
A customer experience platform can be structured in several ways. Some are standalone options alone that integrate into existing systems while others may be a module within a larger enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Regardless, these platforms allow organisations to gather feedback related to customer interactions over multiple channels. When leveraged correctly, they can provide an organisation with timely information that can be used to directly improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Because of accelerating business demands, CX platforms are now increasingly being driven by AI and machine learning. For instance, some platforms are even able to crunch verbal customer feedback and facial expressions to quickly provide businesses with richer data. The inclusion of AI and machine learning is quickly filling the gaps that were once present in previous-generation solutions, particularly in reducing the necessary human labour involved in gathering and analysing qualitative data. Modern CX platforms can now effectively address a number of long-running customer experience management (CXM) roadblocks. Here are just some of these:
- Siloed Data
One of the most significant obstacles to delivering a unified customer experience is the existence of siloed data. Siloing happens when different departments and business units have databases that are not easily accessible to other parts of the business. When customer information is fragmented this way, it leads to wasted effort and prevents the business from gaining a comprehensive view of the customer journey. Indeed, it may even lead to conflicting ideas about customer and market needs within the business, degrading its ability to provide cohesive products and services.
A customer experience platform that integrates data from multiple touchpoints solves these issues, breaking down silos to provide decision-makers with a holistic view of customer interactions. This integration allows businesses to provide more consistent experiences and ensures that no critical insights are lost due to disconnected feedback.
- Inconsistent Customer Experience Across Touchpoints
These days, customers interact with brands through multiple channels, including but not limited to websites, social media, in-store visits, and customer service agents. Inconsistent experiences across these channels can easily lead to frustration and disengagement, as customers begin to feel that they are dealing with multiple different entities rather than just one business.
A well-implemented CX platform enables much better consistency and brand alignment in all customer interactions, regardless of the channel. CX platforms can centralise customer data, making it much easier for all of a business’s divisions to learn , improve and align to maintain a unified brand voice and deliver a cohesive experience at every point of contact.
- Delayed Feedback Response
In traditional setups, businesses often realise a customer was unhappy only after they fail to make an expected repeat purchase. This delayed response can mean that the business continues to offer a subpar experience for longer, negatively affecting customer retention.
Fortunately, using a better CX platform will allow businesses to receive and analyse feedback much faster—often in real time. By closing the feedback loop immediately after an interaction rather than weeks or months later, businesses can better address negative experiences and turn them into positive ones, potentially creating brand advocates in the process.
- Measuring and Improving CX Metrics
Accurately measuring CX is a constant challenge for many organisations, particularly newly-minted SMEs. CX platforms offer businesses easy ways to quickly and accurately measure several standard CX metrics, including Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES), to name but a few. Integrating a CX platform can, therefore, be a way to not only better measure customer sentiments but also move growing organisations towards a more informed, data-centred way of doing business.
- Lack of Actionable Insights
Collecting customer data is one thing; deriving actionable insights from these data is another. Until recently, getting these insights required painstaking labour along with an often-rare mix of experience and intuition. Though these qualities can still come in handy, AI-powered CX platforms can substantially reduce the legwork needed to analyse vast data sets and to identify relevant trends. This enables analysts to focus on the more human aspects of their work, resulting in highly nuanced but data-backed analyses. With timelier and richer insights, decision-makers can be more confident that their actions are solving real customer pain points.
- Uninformed Frontline Teams
Customer service representatives, sales associates, and other customer-facing employees play a crucial role in shaping the customer experience. However, they often lack the information or the tools needed to perform their roles effectively. Integrating a modern CX platform provides these key teams with real-time access to customer data and feedback, empowering them to immediately make a positive difference in customers’ experiences.
- Failing to Meet Customer Expectations
Customer expectations are higher than ever, with personalised, timely, and frictionless interactions now expected of virtually all businesses. CX platforms can help businesses provide these ideal experiences consistently by permitting a more proactive approach to customer interactions. Once set up, platforms with advanced AI and automation can predict customer needs and gaps across all touchpoints, making customers feel understood and truly valued at every stage of their journey.
It’s Time to Invest in Smarter Customer Experience Management
Investing in a comprehensive CX solution should be on every business’s must-do list, particularly if they are focused on developing their customer base. In particular, business planners should now try to understand the capabilities being demonstrated by newer AI-driven systems. Even now, these platforms are revolutionizing the way companies interact with their customers, providing them with a richer, more nuanced view of customer interactions that ultimately creates a more human way of doing business. Transitioning to these new platforms early on should give businesses a decisive advantage in today’s era of mass-personalisation.
