CX Trends Forecast: A Summary of the Top 10 Disrupters Driving Results. Consistently
What are this year s emerging customer experience trends? Here are the 10 customer experience disrupters that we predict will be game changers in 2016. Driving Results. Consistently 2
1. Reducing Effort In 2014 and 2015, we saw companies start leveraging the Customer Effort Score (CES) for predictive measurement of the customer experience and customer loyalty. The theory behind the metric is that customers don t want to put forth the effort to switch channels, call back, wait on hold, be transferred, and push 25 buttons. If you can reduce customer effort, you can increase customer loyalty. Study results published in the Harvard Business Review state that low effort scores led to a 94% likelihood to repurchase and an 88% chance to increase spend. At the core of the customer effort methodology is the principle that we should focus on reducing bad experiences and not waste our time and resources on creating wow that has no imperial ROI. In 2016, we foresee practical customer engagement solutions designed to balance the moments that matter with each consumer with the required business results to grow revenue and retain customers while reducing operating expenses. Low effort scores led to a 94% and an likelihood to chance to REPURCHASE 88% INCREASE SPEND Driving Results. Consistently 3
2. Voice of the Customer Analytics In 2016, be prepared to start seeing voice of the customer dashboards that capture all relevant data points in real-time and use text analytics to decode what s being said. These single-view dashboards can also capture customer sentiment from phone call transcripts (voiceto-text), social media conversations, product rating and reviews, chat logs, idea portals, and customer online community discussions. These dashboards can help customer care centers identify a PR crisis waiting to happen, capture new ideas, and uncover quality or warranty issues, spot trends, fix problems, and, most importantly, personalize the engagement with a customer. Only 8% of consumers actually think companies are doing a good job. Driving Results. Consistently 4
3. Internet of Things (IoT) According to ABI Research, by 2020 more than 30 billion additional devices will be wirelessly connected to physical things TVs, washing machines, thermostats, refrigerators, and even cars. Customer service will be forced to take one step further in its evolution and engage with the customer on the device itself. Consumers will tap digital screens and search knowledge bases for answers, video chat live with a customer service representative, schedule a service appointment, or join a community discussion. Self-service knowledge bases will be present on all devices, from mobile apps to vending machines. This means that your customer service center s product and service materials (both internal and external) will need to be easier to read, contain more visuals, have more videos, and be organized by subject. Eventually these devices will know the customer s purchase history, their personal preferences, and will be able to both detect and predict problems. In 2016, smart brands will be building self-service solutions powered by contextual knowledge bases see trends 4 and 5. A recent IBM study found that 1nega ve experience can drop a customer s brand loyalty BY HALF. Driving Results. Consistently 5
4. Strategic Self-Service Today s mobile revolution has consumers placing high demands on customer service departments to evolve their support models. The self-service trend is growing significantly. There are many different forms of self service, from FAQs on a website to how to videos, peer-to-peer communities, idea portals, top tip guides, and more. According to Corporate Execu ve Board research, 57% of customers tried self-service on company websites before calling the contact center. In 2016, self-service will mature to encompass strategy and insights. Self-service must become the foundation for future interactions (the starting point for how we design customer journeys) with agent assistance integrated in seamlessly when it adds value to the consumer s interaction. To keep up, businesses need to focus on outcomes, like measuring the effectiveness of FAQs in terms of resolving customer issues and applying interaction analytics to top contact driver analysis. In 2016, it s time to rethink self-service, from the right strategic perspective. Driving Results. Consistently 6
5. Contextual Knowledge Bases for Personalization and Prediction As companies gain a deeper understanding of customers through research and predictive analytics, they will use that information to develop more individualized customer experiences. Today, it s not enough to have a knowledge base. The best, most insightful business intelligence is developed from a contextual knowledge base that can be used by both agents and customers to predict the right answer based on that particular customer s data, situation, location, and needs. The end result is faster responses, increased issue resolution, reduced customer effort, and happier customers. According to a November 2014 Aberdeen Group research study, Companies delivering an experience that bridges channels have nearly DOUBLED 2X 13% versus 6.6% their customer reten on rates while achieving significant revenue increases. Driving Results. Consistently 7
6. Automated Text Message Customer Service and Click to Text In 2014 and 2015, we saw some leading-edge brands start to offer two-way text message as a customer service channel. Unlike one-way text message alerts, two-way text messaging allows your brand representative to communicate with your customers through SMS messaging. This year, we ll see an exponential increase in the number of companies offering text as a service channel. Additionally, we ll soon start seeing a Click-to-Text option, which will allow customers to contact customer service via text message after visiting a company s website from their smartphones. With the click of a button, customers can now launch a new SMS to the customer service phone number. They ll also continue to leverage text customer service with evolving text message automation to drive issue resolution. It s convenient for customers who prefer texting (as many consumer plans include unlimited texts whereas competing messaging options require data usage) and a win for businesses, because they no longer require an expensive agent on the other end of that two-way text. 89% of today s business leaders believe that customer experience will be their primary basis for compe on by 2016, according to a Gartner survey. Driving Results. Consistently 8
7. Social Profiling Think about all of the information you can get from looking at a person s public social network profiles. These public profiles are a gold mine of CX personalization data, with details from an individual s age, gender, marital status, and employer to granular details on favorite movies, books, and places traveled. All of this customer preference data builds effective social profiling, which can be used for personalization, customer segmentation, and persona development strategies. Driving Results. Consistently 9
8. Taking a Household Customer Service Approach Over the years, customer service professionals have done a great job collecting customer data on every call such as the customer s first name, last name, serial number, account number, and address. However, where customer service has fallen short is linking customer records by family or household. Knowing exactly who makes up the household is important because it could present previously untapped cross sell or upsell opportunities. In the past 5 years alone, customer preference for automated self-service has doubled to 55% and Gartner predicts that by 2020 85% without any human interac on at all. customers will manage of the rela onship In 2016, expect to see more companies leveraging the power of predictive analytics: knowing the household could be key to this strategy. Driving Results. Consistently 10
9. Connecting on an Emotional Level A Gartner study found 89% of companies plan to compete primarily on the basis of customer experience. This means moving from a market-and-sell mindset to more of a sense-and-feel customer engagement approach. Today s customers expect the brands they do business with to know me, engage me, make my life simple, anticipate my needs, feel what I feel, and reward me. In 2016, expect to see more empathy training inside customer care centers, text and sentiment analytics being deployed, a focus on reducing effort, and predictive modeling used to predict emotion. According to recent IBM/MIT research, In sum, 38% of businesses understanding of how to use analy cs to improve the business. 34% of businesses lack bandwidth due to compe ng priori es lack 28% lack skills internally Driving Results. Consistently 11
10. Digital Transformation to Unify the Customer Experience Businesses are working hard to figure out how best to integrate and connect all of the disparate communication channels, along with the backend data structure needed to personalize and reduce effort along the customer journey. Putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together to optimize the customer experience and make your brand more competitive is a huge undertaking, but HGS is getting global brands up and running on digital platforms with integrated digital agents in as little as 90-days with pilots that are designed to incubate your best approaches to empower customers to help themselves. Today s consumers have become rewired mentally and emotionally to their smartphones and tablets, which has caused them to abandon traditional customer support channels in favor of digital and self-serve options. If digital transformation is not a part of your brand s customer service strategy in 2016, it should be. According to a recent Interna onal Data Corpora on (IDC) survey, when asked about the most important characteris c to ensure sa sfac on when communica ng with a company, 34% 24% 19% chose ease of use/ simplicity of process chose cost chose a friendly person/ personal interac on Driving Results. Consistently 12
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