Improving the customer experience

Transcription

1 When Good Customer Service Is Not Enough In today s world, we all expect a good customer service experience in everything we buy. If we do not, we are more likely to go elsewhere next time. If enough customers do so in droves, the organisation has to invest more in encouraging customers back or reinvent itself. Price reduction is an alternative method of attracting customers and increasing sales, particularly in the short term, but generally it is the customer experience that determines whether: 1. Friends and colleagues will recommend a product or service to us drives new sales 2. Customers are likely to revisit for the same experience drives repeat sales 3. Customers generate a public or private complaint drives lost sales This paper discusses why it is important to understand and measure the customer experience. This helps provide direction to the whole service delivery organisation in building the required operating model to support customers evolving expectations. Once the organisation understands the customer requirements, taking a Business Service Portfolio approach can facilitate the business functions and IT partners to work hand in hand in creating a seamless end-to-end customer experience, resulting in a direct impact to your bottom line. A case in point The approach used to improve the customer service experience is often determined by an organisation s own culture, history and objectives. This approach however, often leads to a narrow focus and therefore a short term view on how to improve the front-end of the business, for example, customer support centres. Take the following example where a customer required new flooring for their flat and consulted a friend who had recently made a similar purchase. Recounting her experience, the friend found one product that she liked after visiting various DIY stores. A store assistant was very helpful and had not only taken her to the appropriate aisle but also took the time to understand her requirements and showed her the available options which met those requirements. The friend selected the product she wanted but only 14 of the 22 boxes she required were available from the racks. She went to the customer service counter to order more only to be told by a very polite member of staff that there were no more in stock. That member of staff also informed her that only 6 boxes a week arrived and if she wanted more there was a minimum order of 200. The fact her 22 boxes came to less than 170 meant that her options were limited to: Ordering 200 of goods and then return the unwanted items Taking the 14 available boxes and either waiting each week for the additional boxes to arrive or trawl around the company s other branches to obtain the remaining boxes Going elsewhere

2 Not being impressed with the options available, the friend told the member of staff that she felt that it was not very customer focused. She went on-line to find an alternative option and has since made her purchase via an on-line competitor. This has resulted in the national DIY store: 1. Investing time educating the customer on the most appropriate product 2. Losing her as a customer for current and future sales 3. Driving her to a competitor for current and future sales 4. Encouraging her friend to buy elsewhere Would the experience have been the same had there been back-end systems in place to better support the front-end service the member of staff needed in order to give the required service to the customer? Not having the back-office processes and functions aligned with your front-office will inevitably impact your brand, driving away existing and potential customers, even if your front-office is customer driven. In a world where technology changes offer ever increasing alternatives, customers have options to shop around and the customers expectations are higher than ever. Can any organisation afford to ignore the end-to-end components that support the customer experience? Improving the customer experience With today s technology and Service Management frameworks, the back-end processes should be supporting better customer interactions. The fact that the friend was able to easily order a similar product on-line illustrates the original DIY store service was not designed end-to-end with back-end functionalities supporting its customer needs and front-end operations. In this example a lost sale could have been avoided had processes existed to sell the product in the way customers want it (endto-end thinking) rather than simply selling products at pre-determined quantities. To achieve this, a detailed customer journey map can provide the direction to deliver service excellence. This involves: 1. Identifying the customer contact points with your organisation 2. Mapping the customer journeys across those contact points determining the customers hidden needs 3. Identifying the processes and information requirements that support the customers contact points and journeys 4. Creating mechanisms to alert and measure customer experiences which help to drive service delivery improvements The above is not often considered with the merit it deserves when reviewing and developing the customer service experience, because customer experience has not been prioritised or considered as important. Having such information to hand would additionally allow gap analysis to be carried out to determine underperforming or missing contact points as well as unsupported customer journeys. With the information identified, a service delivery model aimed at your customers may then be

3 created to support all the customer journeys with the right information being made available at the right time and to the relevant contact staff and suppliers. However, where organisations have a myriad of products and services on offer, it may not be enough to simply rely on the mapping of customer journeys to provide robust ongoing service delivery. These complex service lines need to be supported in a structured manner. Supporting an evolving customer experience Once the customer experience is improved, it needs to be maintained. Just like having a wellequipped army that may initially gain ground, it may not continue or expect to hold the gains made without logistical support. Similarly, good customer service cannot stand alone. It needs to be supported by and aligned with all the business processes and IT systems that help deliver it. When each supporting process is reviewed, it needs to be developed with the end customer experience in mind. This approach is currently allowing many successful online organisations to flourish. Unhindered by historical ties or old technologies they are unconstrained by traditional limitations and are therefore better able to meet their customers ever demanding needs, allowing them to enrich the customer experience. Organisations that tend to have legacy systems or have generally grown through acquisition tend to be weighed down by unaligned technologies and working methods creating greater complexities than their new competitors. Complex organisation structures and working methods inevitably lead to increased inefficiencies and operating costs whilst also reducing the organisation s flexibility to react to the evolving customer needs. These are often unintentionally created due to the focus not being the end customer experience but more short-sighted objectives. To overcome this, there needs to be an understanding of the components that provide the service to the end customer. This is achieved by taking a Business Service Portfolio approach which determines and catalogues the business services. Doing so allows the simplification of the end-to-end service model that may otherwise remain vague or convoluted making decisions difficult as it would rely more on assumptions and risk management. With a Business Service Portfolio, such assumptions and risks can be removed. The Business Service Portfolio, in addition to listing the current and future business services, also describes the capabilities and attributes of the services. Those capabilities need to be aligned to the desired customer service experience for them to have value. Furthermore, to support those capabilities, the deliverables from your internal and external IT partners need to be built from a business outcome perspective. This approach will also have the added benefit of; Moving your IT partners away from technological solutions (techno centric) Encouraging your IT partners to consider more service orientated solutions Aligning the IT service you need with your business needs (service centric)

4 Business Optimisation Having a business services portfolio also permits you to facilitate business optimisation. The portfolio will simplify the service chain that makes up the customer experience. Something that would otherwise have been complex to comprehend will have been broken down into component parts. Simplifying the view into component parts enables for an easier review of the supporting teams, processes, technologies and business intelligence allowing you to potentially rationalise, streamline and automate, thus introducing efficiencies and lower operating costs. Understanding the dependencies of your services will allow you to attribute costs to the delivery of the service and allow you to decide how much to invest in supporting differentiated levels of customer experience or alternative service delivery models. By understanding the cost elements and the relative demand levels of each service line, an organisation is better able to understand the most cost effective service delivery model. Investments made will also be accompanied with a better understanding of the expected return on investment. You may even find yourself in a position where you have determined the current customer experience may be too costly and alternative cost effective solutions can be on-boarded in a timely, efficient and effective manner. Customer experience and bottom line impact Understanding the contact points the customers have and ensuring customer journeys are measured, tracked and improved, will lead to all staff across the organisation understanding what they are working towards and help support the overall customer experience and company brand. The improved levels of service need to be supported by a service centric and streamlined organisation avoiding the pitfalls that product and technology led organisations attract. Inherent complexities in today s businesses have a need for clarification through a structured method brought by a Business Service Portfolio. With this clear business direction, IT partners and other support functions should be in a position to assist and advise the business on meeting its needs

5 and objectives. Shifting the culture away from technology has the answer to a service centric culture will lead to a more fulfilling customer experience. By increasing the repurchase rate, customer defection rate is decreased and therefore reduces the need to encourage lost customers to return, allowing greater focus on attaining new customers. Companies that prioritise the customer experience can generate 60% higher profits than their competitors 1. With such numbers at stake, should we all not be more customer and service centric? For further information on how we may help you improve the end-to-end service or to discuss the services provided by icore in more detail, please contact an icore consultant on: Telephone: +44 (0) info@icore-ltd.com Michael Pereiras, Senior Consultant Robert Mazzucchi, Head of Practice Business Service Management 1 Gartner Group, Emmet C. Murphy and Mark A. Murphy