Three Benefits You Gain by Managing the Customer Journey TABLE OF CONTENTS Three Benefits to Focusing on CX and Customer Journeys...1 Overcoming Roadblocks on The Path to Great Experiences...4 Keys to Success...4 How to Get There...5 In today s Internet-driven and global economy, businesses are struggling to find differentiation from their competitors. Today s consumers have access to products and services from a seemingly endless number of vendors. It is more important than ever for businesses to focus on the customer experience as a way to attract and retain customers. Unique to every organization, the customer experience is difficult to imitate and can be a significant source of competitive advantage for companies of all sizes. In fact, there is a proven correlation between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, yet focusing on customer satisfaction is not enough. Key to creating customer loyalty is the delivery of an effortless customer experience across the customer journey, which strengthens a company s brand image and reputation and converts customers into brand advocates. The end result is improved commercial performance with greater customer retention and less churn. This paper explores three benefits businesses can realize by focusing on the customer journey. Three Benefits to Focusing on CX and Customer Journeys 1. Good Customer Experience is Good Business Delivering a good customer experience is not just good for your customers, it is also good for your bottom line. Why? Simply put, customers who view their experiences with your company to be positive typically spend more money in the future. In fact, a recent McKinsey customer experience survey of 27,000 US consumers across 44 industries found that companies that focus on providing a superior and low effort experience across their customer journeys such as customer onboarding, account changes and problem resolution realized positive business results, including a 10-15% increase in revenue growth and a 20% increase in customer satisfaction. Additionally, the Forrester Report, titled The Business Impact of Customer Experience, 2012 found that delivering a good customer experience has a direct impact on business including: More willing to consider the company for another purchase Less likely to switch business to another competitor More likely to recommend the company to a friend or colleague
Three Benefits You Gain by Managing the Customer Journey / page 2 With the window for product and service differentiation narrowing rapidly as companies quickly match the new offers of their competition, providing great customer experiences is becoming the way for your business to distinguish themselves from the competition, gain and retain customers, and grow your bottom line. 2. Consistent Multi-Channel Customer Journeys Lower Your Cost to Serve While much has been discussed concerning how delivering a superior customer experience can translated to increased revenue, in reality the other important consideration is that poor or inconsistent customer experience, costs you money. The Accenture study The 2013 Global Consumer Pulse Research, Digital Customer: It s Time to Play to Win and Stop Playing to Lose, highlights the direct and negative impact of delivering poor customer service. The study found that 66% of consumers switched companies due to poor service in at least one industry in the past year alone. Of those who switched, a full 82% felt that their service provider could have done something to prevent them from switching. On the other hand, McKinsey found that companies who do manage consistent customer journeys lower their cost to serve by 15-20%. Over the past decade, much focus and attention has been paid to enhancing customer interaction channels and to make them more efficient. Many companies have made good strides particularly with self-service channels, although the primary driver of these initiatives has been to drive cost out of the organization more often than not by containing customers within that self-service channel, regardless of the reason. Unfortunately, these initiatives are typically channel-specific and focused on the interaction, not the journey. The problem is that a focus on the interaction channel does not take into account the behavior of today s consumer, including the growing preference to bounce between channels during the course of a customer journey such as the purchase of a new product, or to resolve a service problem. This creates a number of challenges: Inconsistent experience as consumers switch from one channel to another, such as shopping online then calling the contact center with questions Siloed customer information that requires the customer to re-enter key information multiple times such as name, account number and reason for contact Repetitive steps due to lack of insight such as asking customer if they want to view their account balance when they just did so in another channel, or presenting new product offers when the customer is in the midst of a major service issue Considering that customers have already demonstrated their willingness and even preference to switch interaction channels depending on the issue and need, the above challenges not only infuriate the customer, they also cost your business money. Inconsistency in the experience translates to customer frustration and increased questions more often than not they are escalated to higher-cost agent channels, such as the contact center. By requiring information to be resubmitted in each channel or presenting repetitive steps, results in your customers spending more time in each channel. All of this directly drives up your service costs.
Three Benefits You Gain by Managing the Customer Journey / page 3 By taking a more holistic view of the customer through a focus on customer journey mapping, along with the delivering of a consistent cross-channel experience, you can directly save on service costs. 3. Your Customers Expect a Low Effort Experience and Will Stay with You if They Get It Consumers expect your company to make it easy for them to do business. If that doesn t happen, many will leave for a competitor. Unfortunately, most companies still make it difficult for consumers to revolve issues or obtain answers to their questions. Market insights from Forrester Research found that 67% of US online consumers say they had an unsatisfactory service interaction in the past 12 months. A recent Echo Research study for American Express found that one out of three customers feel businesses are paying less attention to customer service these days, and a striking nine out of 10 say that companies are failing to exceed their customer service expectations. The survey results went on to show that over half (55%) of respondents say that they have passed up a business transaction in the past year due to a poor customer service experience. What is most frustrating to consumers? The Accenture Global Consumer Pulse survey found that 91% of respondents were frustrated by needing to contact a company multiple times for the same reason; 90% of respondents were frustrated with being put on hold for a long time, and 89% with having to repeat their issue to multiple representatives. The underlying theme is that companies need to create an environment where customers experience a low level of effort necessary to accomplish a goal be it to resolve a service problem, make a purchase, or simply to obtain an answer to a question. In another Forrester study, over half of US online consumers will abandon their online purchase if they cannot find a quick answer to their questions, and three-quarters say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good service. While many companies have instituted grand campaigns announcing their emphasis on providing superior customer service, it often does not end in the desired result. Why? An extensive study by the Customer Experience Board of over 97,000 customers found that meeting and even exceeding customer expectations is not enough as it doesn t directly impact customers loyalty. Instead, the determining factor is customer effort. The less effort it takes for consumers to accomplish their goal when they contact you, the more loyal they become. The opportunity is for you to differentiate from the competition by making it easier for your customers to do business with you and by creating a low effort environment.
Three Benefits You Gain by Managing the Customer Journey / page 4 Overcoming Roadblocks on The Path to Great Experiences CX Inconsistent Across Customer Journey Businesses that are slow to invest in improving the customer experience very often let their legacy, out-of-date information systems and technology infrastructure dictate the level of service they provide. The results, more often than not, are inconsistent, impersonal, and disconnected experiences across touchpoints, channels and interactions. Context Lost Across Channels and Customer Interaction Typically, as the number of customer interaction channels increase, each new channel is added in isolation and handled separately frequently by different departments within the organization. Continuing to treat these digital channels as independent interaction points is often a significant competitive disadvantage. Underutilized Enterprise Resources and Misaligned Processes The lack of context from previous customer interactions often results in incorrect routing to less-than-optimal employee resources that lack the necessary skills or appropriate information to resolve the customer issue, causing broken customer experiences and de-motivated employees. Optimizing the performance of an underutilized workforce is often a challenge. Keys to Success While there are a number of challenges and issues to overcome to deliver a superior customer experience through a focus on the customer journey, the good news is that the technology and methodology exists to make it a reality. Delivering a Consistent Customer Experiences Across Customer Journeys Companies that consistently deliver a great customer experience have realized measurable business benefits far beyond improving customer loyalty and profit. Focusing on end-to-end customer journeys across multiple touchpoints and channels can build significant competitive advantage, reduce customer churn and differentiate the brand from competitors. This end-toend focus on customer experience also improves sales effectiveness - converting customers into advocates and repeat buyers - while driving costs out of your business. Carrying Context Carried Across Channels and Touchpoints Creating a consistent brand across multiple channels, such as voice, mobile apps, website and face-to-face interactions, is critical when trying to understand the customer experience from their viewpoint. Often this is seen as a complex challenge requiring huge investment in new technologies and a new customer platform but it doesn t have to be. The difficulty in creating a single view of the customer across multiple locations, channels, products and the different times in which they interact can be solved in part by automation, integration and the adoption of open standards.
Three Benefits You Gain by Managing the Customer Journey / page 5 Aligning Enterprise Processes and Resources Across The Customer Journey No matter your business goals, knowing your customer and their needs ahead of time and how you are going to serve them will transform your contact center operations. Robust and efficient multi-channel routing capabilities help create the right balance between great customer experiences and operational efficiency. By connecting valuable customers with the best possible resource available, routing strategies help your organization drive customer satisfaction and reduce frustration. Routing correctly the first time - whatever the customer issue or need can be the difference between an unhappy customer and a loyal brand advocate. The ability to define resources and assign customer centric tasks to employees located across different departments creates a measurable, manageable workflow from a complex array of operational and business-driven requirements. How to Get There About Genesys Genesys, the world s #1 Customer Experience Platform, empowers companies to create exceptional omnichannel experiences, journeys and relationships. For over 25 years, we have put the customer at the center of all we do, and we passionately believe that great customer engagement drives great business outcomes. Genesys is trusted by over 4,700 customers in 120 countries, to orchestrate over 24 billion contact center interactions per year in the cloud and on premises. For more information www.genesys.com. The Genesys Customer Experience Platform Since our inception in 1990, Genesys has been the pioneer in customer experience solutions. At the heart of the Genesys Customer Experience Platform is patented technology that allows companies to easily optimize the distribution, commonly called routing, of all interactions, cases and back office tasks in such a way that it delivers a highly differentiated customer experience and the lowest cost of operations. This capability is part of the Genesys Customer Experience Platform, delivering a differentiated customer experience that will increase customer loyalty, reduce churn, increase revenue and lower operational cost. Genesys allows organizations to manage and carry context across multiple channels and holistically understand the customer journey, helping to provide an outstanding, efficient and cohesive service to meet the customer need. Corporate Headquarters 2001 Junipero Serra Blvd., Daly City, CA 94014 USA Tel: +1 650 466 1100 Fax: +1 650 466 1260 info@genesyslab.com www.genesyslab.com Genesys and the Genesys logo are registered trademarks of Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. All other company names and logos may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. 2014 Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved.