Couple empathy with common sense to deliver winning cx

Customer engagement

In conversation with CX Network Suman Kargupta, head of customer experience at telecommunications organization Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, shares the story of his successful career so far, highlighting the key lessons his career has taught him.

Ahead of his session at CXN Live: Customer Experience for Telecoms, Kargupta offers tips for the implementation of automation and chatbot initiatives, and the application of data to enhance customer experiences.

CX Network: Firstly, tell us about your customer experience (CX) career journey and the biggest CX lesson your career has taught you

Suman Kargupta: I started my career and my CX journey in the hotel industry. I consider myself very lucky for that, because it taught me the importance of having a strong CX mindset. The hospitality industry puts a huge premium on CX, actually, it is pretty much obsessed with it. Every process is built around CX and every employee is culturally trained to be a CX evangelist. From the doorman, who stands outside those huge doors as you walk in, to the technician changing light bulbs in the corridor. The way every employee is trained to be an evangelist was a key learning for me in that industry.

Then I moved on to telecoms in India, at a time when the first private organizations or enterprises were allowed to provide telecoms services. The incumbent player at that point was part of the country's public sector, and it was a typical monopoly where they were very complacent. They had zero customer focus, forget CX focus. Handling basic customer complaints was a big challenge in those days.

In that situation, eight new private enterprises got into the business. I was lucky to be part of the pioneer team and realised that the key success mantra had to be customer service. The focus was not CX, because CX was not a concept that the telecoms industry had adopted yet. We built a customer focus and service heavy organization to start with, because that was the best way to win over customers from the incumbent and stay ahead of the competition as customers were desperate for good service. I have been in telecoms ever since and have been able to drive the transition from service, to customer satisfaction, to customer delight.

The lesson I have learned in all these years is that empathy is the most important thing and you have to couple that empathy with common sense, there is no rocket science involved. The most important skill to encompasses is the ability to be in the customer’s shoes. Once you are able to think, feel, and view as a customer, then it becomes crystal clear what is necessary to deliver CX. When we view organizational challenges as service professionals, we are never able to make that transition to deliver good CX. The moment we move to the other side and become the customer, then you can focus your effort on figuring out the best way to deliver what they need.

CX Network: Can you walk us through a success story within telecoms that benefited customers?

SK: Most organizations outsource or delegate voice of the customer (VOC) programs to the service function. I always believe that doing so creates a huge chasm between the customer and employees. So, I created an enterprise wide VOC program. Every employee was given a mandate to directly or indirectly interact with our customers. They had a choice to listen to customer conversations with the contact centre advisors, spend time at our stores interacting with customers, or read customer emails. They then had to share with their teams the learnings and insights.

It completely transformed people within the organization. Employees started appreciating customer pain and issues and started identifying with them. Suddenly, the customer was transformed from a number to a person with aspirations, needs, demands and emotions. Employees started asking “why?” to themselves and to their teams, suppliers and internal customers. In the end that translated to better processes, systems, and outcomes and our customer satisfaction scores started galloping ahead.

To access the full range of insights and advice from Kargupta, sign up for CXN Live: Customer Experience for Telecoms.