7 Best Practices To Improve The Customer Experience

The omnichannel revolution, in addition to connecting channels from a technological point of view, unites the experiences in each and every one of the points of contact between companies and customers. Currently, although users prefer fast and agile experiences, they still expect a personal touch.

The report ‘Customer Journey Mapping’, prepared by CCW Digital, reveals the benefits that the elaboration of a ‘mapping of the trip’ centered in the client, as well as the good practices that the call center must implement to improve the customer experience.

These best practices, based both on the client’s trip and on the client’s centricity, are the following:

1.- Implement an integrated and omnichannel call: To improve the ‘customer journey’, organizations must implement call center solutions based on omnichannel. Agents must have access to tools that provide them with information about each client’s identity and query history. Therefore, the integration of contact centers with corporate systems (CRM or ERP) of organizations is key. According to data from the CCW Digital report, companies save an average of 44 seconds per interaction when agents have the customer file.

2.- Unify the different customer-oriented functions: Beyond the connection systems, the organizations with a centricity in the client’s mind establish an alignment between the different departments. When the sales teams, product development, marketing and services have the same objectives for the customer experience, they can evaluate the journey from the same perspective. It is therefore important that organizations are aware that each interaction affects the entire relationship and that customer-centered service should be their main priority.

3.- Build the appropriate ‘journey maps’: As an instrument to meet customer demands, the travel mapping represents a very efficient customer experience tool. According to the report, this potential to drive results explains why journey mapping represents an investment consideration for 84% of organizations, and an urgent priority for 37%.

4.- Rethink channel preferences: Channel preferences often come from inadequate information, since customers do not always know which is the best channel to solve a particular problem. Organizations focused on customer centricity overcome this challenge by evaluating the attention of specific customer problems in certain channels. Thus, call centers can improve the user experience in a specific channel or direct them to the corresponding channel.

5.- Adapting to changing contexts: By considering the key challenges of contact centers and developing a journey map adaptable to a changing environment, organizations can significantly improve the customer experience.

6.- Understand the importance of customer centricity: Customer-centered experiences offer them what they really want. Organizations can direct clients to the most appropriate channels (or agents) to resolve each query. In addition, customer-based strategies help companies complement their “segmentation” data to better predict user behavior.

7.- Identify and evaluate opportunities for innovation: Thanks to analysis and journey maps, organizations can identify the “weak points” and explore opportunities for long-term innovation. Using knowledge of the client’s intentions and competitive experiences, call centers can better map the journey by identifying who the client is, where the client has been and what objective they hope to achieve.

As a result, contact center agents and self-service tools can tailor the experience more accurately and quickly. By training clients to solve problems without the assistance of an agent, self-service can significantly increase the operational efficiency of call centers. On the other hand, digital channels offer a similar potential: since agents can simultaneously handle multiple chats or text conversations, they are more decisive, thus increasing customer satisfaction.

In conclusion, according to the CCW Digital report, today’s organizations exist in an era based on customer centricity. Therefore, they must identify and amplify with greater precision the main advantages (and disadvantages) over their competitors. With the awareness of how the agent and user experiences affect, companies can evaluate and optimize investments in technology more significantly.