Opportunities Are Wide Open to Differentiate through Customer Experience

A recent Ventana Research report titled, "Customer Experience Management: Improving the Consistency and Quality of Customer Interactions," found that only “12 percent of organizations provide optimal [Customer Experience Management] CEM.”

In an era where “customers may be one annoying phone conversation or frustrating experience at a poorly functioning website away from defecting to a competitor,” this seems virtually unthinkable. However, it presents an exceptional opportunity for companies to gain ground on competitors by focusing on the customer experience.

The report also revealed that of those that measure customer satisfaction with handling calls (59%), nearly half (49%) were less than satisfied with the results of their calls! The bulk of this dissatisfaction can be traced back to the desktop and the agent’s interaction with the desktop.

Lack of initiative
Yet despite these facts, barely one in three respondents intends to upgrade their desktop in the next 12 months. And of those, nearly half intend to build a system in-house rather than considering the viable solutions currently available. With proven desktop technology readily available and quick to implement, the choice to wait or to build in-house could be a costly one. 

So what to do next if you’re serious about differentiating on customer experience? The executive summary offers eight key steps.

1. Increase awareness of how CEM can promote business goals.
2. Assess your maturity and take steps to improve.
3. Invest in technologies that help you understand your customers better.
4. Invest further and differently in training and coaching agents.
5. Consider desktop technology to help agents handle interactions more effectively.
6. Review and improve customer self-service.
7. Transition to an integrated, multichannel customer service environment.
8. Create a single view of the customer.

To learn more about the benefits of a smarter agent desktop, download the complimentary Ventana Research benchmark report at www.cincom.com/CEMresearch.

Courtesy – Randy Saunders at Perfect CEM