Digital customer experience
Frictionless digital experiences in today’s economy are essential for customer engagement, retention, maximizing revenue and reducing complaints. The decline in bricks-and-mortar retailing predated the pandemic, but worldwide lockdowns hastened the need for slick e-commerce experiences. While some companies had undertaken extensive digital transformation prior to 2020, others had to swiftly develop their digital CX to more acceptable levels.
Despite the recent acceleration around digital services, there is still room for improvement around online journeys. PwC’s December 2021 Global Consumer Insights Survey highlights the importance of optimizing smartphones experiences and customer online safety in particular. The survey found consumer usage of smartphones has increased by 29 percentage points in the past five years, while 59 percent of respondents became more protective of their personal data in the second half of 2021.
This eBook reflects on the lessons shared at CXN Live: Digital CX around accelerating digital CX journeys without sacrificing quality. Leaders from Amazon Games, Nissan, Roche and AT&T provide insights on protecting customers’ online wellbeing, streamlining digital CX optimization and implementing successful cultural transformation.
The duty of protecting customers’ online safety
Iain Langridge, product and customer experience lead at Amazon Games
Amazon Games, a division of online retailing behemoth Amazon, is a digitally native company serving gaming customers in virtual worlds. With billions of player-to-player interactions frequently taking place, one of Amazon Games’ primary digital CX challenges revolves around customer conduct and safety. Players can talk to each other and share information as they compete, which can directly affect gaming experiences and gamers’ cyber security.
“It is difficult to overstate the complexity of gamer customer experience – it’s not just tech support – we manage virtual worlds, solo and multi-players, and virtual economies that generate real-world incomes for players,” Langridge explained during CXN Live: Digital CX’s panel session.
“Customer-to-customer interactions can be super powerful, but there are safety concerns with CX,” he added. “These gamer-to-gamer interactions have placed a duty upon Amazon Games’ CX to be aligned with the evolving legislative and judiciary protections that can help “prevent toxic behavior often associated with gaming”. These protections include determining whether verbal threats made by gamers are part of legitimate gameplay or if a customer is at genuine risk.
Also read: Digital customer loyalty and retention
Continuous digital journey optimization
To optimize any digital experience, Langridge highlighted that companies must understand if customer journeys work as they were designed. This includes whether customers are achieving their aims and are complying with acceptable product usage, as well as if CX interactions are encouraging a positive impact on gamers’ emotional states. Diversity in hiring can also be helpful in preventing toxic customer behavior, Langridge noted, remarking: “We all come from different backgrounds, and we are passionate about customer service. Diverse people and diverse backgrounds help [Amazon Games] to innovate and accelerate [service levels].”
Lesson:
Dedicate your brand to supporting users’ cyber safety with the mission of maintaining trust earned from customers.
“We all come from different backgrounds and are passionate about customer service. Diverse people and diverse backgrounds help [Amazon Games] to innovate and accelerate [service levels].”
Iain Langridge
product and customer experience lead at Amazon Games
Scaling-up digital support when your customers need it most
Similar to most eCommerce businesses, sporting goods retailer SPORT 24’s customer service is greatly influenced by customer request fluctuations triggered by seasonal peaks. In the past, customer enquiry surges overwhelmed the brand’s human resources which led to slow response times (52 hours). In extreme cases, the surges forced the Danish retailer to switch off contact channels like live chat.
To handle seasonal demand fluctuations without encountering human bottlenecks or damaging customer satisfaction levels, the retailer decided to implement customer service automation in the form of a new digital team member: its chatbot SportBot24.
Powered by Solvemate’s conversational AI, the chatbot proactively guides customers to find the answers they are looking for. The bot combines dynamic decision-tree logic with natural language processing (NLP) to offer personalized support throughout the customer journey: from pre-transactional requests to problems during the buying process as well as post-purchase.
As a result of implementing SportBot24 Malene Wrængmose, customer service team leader at SPORT 24, noted: “This is the first time we have been able to have live chat open during peak season because we can decide exactly on which topics, we want to offer through the chatbot.”
The chatbot completes more than 5,600 conversations monthly, delivering an answer in just 19 seconds while keeping a high Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) of 81 percent.
SPORT 24 also uses the bot’s insights to continuously tailor its service and processes to better fit customer needs.
Metrics achieved from bot implementation
- 19 seconds
to issue resolution
- 69 percent
self-service rate
- 50 percent
decrease in average response time
- 81 percent
overall CSAT
Lesson:
Connecting a chatbot to a CRM system can create seamless experiences for customers with highly relevant conversations at every step of their buyer or service journey.
Digitally transforming CX in a targeted manner
Hussein M. Dajani, general manager of digital and customer experience transformation at Nissan Motor Company
The pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic greatly accelerated digital transformation stakeholder buy-in at Nissan. Dajani saw digital services his CX team had been “begging and shouting” for investment in for a long time go from “nice-to-haves to must-haves”. These included allowing customers to shop online for Nissan products, providing virtual showrooms and bringing cars to customers for test drives. Dajani estimated that Nissan performed two years’ worth of CX transformation in the first half of 2020 alone.
“Customers can [now] deal with us digitally or physically as we are giving people the choice,” Dajani said. “We are addressing the needs of customers depending on who they are and what they need.”
When building business cases to obtain executive buy-in for digital experience enhancements, Dajani recommended that CX practitioners root arguments in data that demonstrated the business benefits that were available. He added that financial benefits with forecasted timelines would have the most weight in boardrooms.
Also read: Accelerating ROI in CX trends
Digital transforming in alignment to your customers
Dajani acknowledged that organizations need to keep up with digital advancements without wasting money on unnecessary technology.
“The fast pace at which digital technologies [are] moving is not really helping organizations,” he noted. “If the way data is captured keeps changing, that can get expensive [for a business].” Although continuous improvement and agility are important, Dajani warned that brands must avoid blindly jumping on every technology “bandwagon”.
Before launching online features, Dajani advised brands to either fully master new functionalities “or do not put them out there”, particularly when opening multiple digital options to customers.
“If launches are not properly managed, you will lose customers and create pain points, so test out [new features] very well,” he advised. An example of this approach could be ahead of launch stress test chatbots with front-line employees who know a business’s customers best such as the sales department.
Lesson:
Do not be distracted by industry hype around new technologies. Digitally transform in a targeted manner that is aligned with customer needs.
An agile service overhaul to meet customer needs
David C. Williams, assistant vice president of automation at AT&T
Similar to Nissan, (see page 5), American telecommunications giant AT&T saw the pandemic accelerate the digital transformation of its CX functions, building a foundation for improved customer service in the long term.
“By April 2020, we needed our employees to be able to completely do their jobs [from home] because there were hundreds of thousands of [civilians] who needed our telecoms services – paralegals, teachers, hospital staff, small businesses,” said Williams.
AT&T’s agents working remotely needed to easily access information to answer customer queries, make sales and take payments. The chosen solution had to respect security protocols while providing a user-friendly experience for customers and agents.
In March 2020, the telecoms company pivoted its technology platform so agents could work from home. A process that “typically takes six or seven months” was completed in five weeks by “working in an agile way with every group at AT&T”, including its network, corporate and hardware teams.
Also read: Digital customer loyalty and retention
Blending audio and visual experiences
A key component of the new system was the inclusion of visualization that allowed agents to access “visual dialogue [with customers] in a simple, frictionless way”. As well as providing an avatar of the agent to help personalize the service, visual experiences communicate information such as sales offers and terms and conditions.
“Typically, customer service is an audible discussion, but now there’s a visual component that completely changes that experience from the ground up,” Williams explained. “Customers are able to visually make payments on their devices in a secure way and we can show customers products from our catalog, so if there are questions you can address them right there, and customers can pay on the spot,” Williams added.
AT&T is now in the process of creating self-service options for streamlined customer interactions such as making payments and changing names on accounts. Williams said the telecoms operator is working to strike a balance between enjoying the cost benefits of self-service technology while providing personal service.
“Customers are able to visually make payments on their devices in a secure way and we can show customers products from our catalog, so if there are questions you can address them right there, and customers can pay on the spot.”
David C. Williams
assistant vice president of automation at AT&T
Lesson:
Use the digital transformation momentum triggered by the pandemic to instill long-term customer experience upgrades.
Avoiding the pitfalls of digital CX short-termism
André Grandt, customer experience chapter lead and transformation officer at Roche
Roche’s CX digital optimization has existed as a continuous, strategic process across the 100 countries it serves. The pharmaceutical company has identified internal digital waste, prevented duplication of existing services and shared learnings between different parts of the business to eradicate silos, according to Grandt.
Change management strategies have been vital for ensuring digital CX transformation “touches every angle of the business, from the cleaner to the general manager”, Grandt said. He added that the success of digital transformation relies on the humility to change perspectives by asking “what do we need to collectively unlearn first to make capacity for new concepts like CX?”
By ensuring its employees have a clear understanding of what digital transformation means and why it is important for the experience Roche delivers, the pharma company’s culture has been building “excitement and curiosity about moving digital CX forward collectively with our external customers and patients”, Grandt explained.
Laying the foundation for long-term CX transformation
Grandt said brands should avoid using the terms CX and customer service interchangeably when driving long-term strategic transformation.
“Customer service already implies a consumer relationship, but human experience – the perception of a brand, seeing, smelling, hearing – means you can evolve a CX program in the purest way,” he remarked.
Instead of opting for the simplest solution or “falling for shiny, new things”, Grandt stressed the importance of targeting customer needs and wants. His golden rule for digital CX success is customer alignment.
“The needs of your customers are your destination, and your customers are the pilots of the transportation,” he said. “Get to know your pilots the best you can and they will take you to where you need to go. They know the shortcuts as well.”
Grandt has a clear message for senior managers: “Trust the process of the CX journey – we are so used to looking at product sales and ROI, but CX investment will not show ROI in the first year. Please have the courage as a senior manager to believe and to invest now for the best of customer service in the future.”
Lesson:
For long-term enthusiasm toward digital CX to take root, be coordinated and consistent in efforts to enlighten employees and empower customers.
Final remarks:
At CXN Live: Digital CX, industry leaders demonstrated that CX digital transformation is not a buzzword or a temporary pandemic survival measure. It is integral to business success with customers demanding frictionless experiences.
Nissan and AT&T achieved dramatic digital transformation in a condensed timeframe because of urgent needs triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, but these innovations are now part of the long-term digital CX strategy for both companies.
Winning buy-in from senior managers – and throughout entire organizations – was a common theme at the event. CX digital transformation should be viewed as a strategic, ongoing process that benefits employees and customers when implemented effectively. It is important to choose technology carefully, consider customer cyber safety and, as Roche’s Grandt stressed, where necessary be patient about achieving ROI.
Companies that are committed to digital transformation for CX must take a strategic approach involving the entire organization, with a dedication to instilling new cultural mindsets, as well as smart technology investments that benefit the digital experiences provided to customers.