As lockdown was imposed to control the epidemic, businesses had to rethink their customer experience strategy. Companies had to look for new ways to meet their customers online. This trend is likely to endure and a Forrester survey predicts that B2B business will be mostly digital in the future.
This underscores the need to attract, retain and build loyalty with customers. Many have increased spending on digital capabilities and infrastructure. They are also investing heavily in customer support and other customer-facing teams. But this increases the cost in proportion to business growth.
Instead, companies have to design long term solution enabling them to deliver customer experience at scale to ensure profitable growth. They should assess the underutilised assets and decide how to sustain customer relationships.
Engagement: Companies often encourage support teams to go above and beyond to satisfy the customer. But these experiences vary depending on touchpoints or varying times. This may not be necessary as many times it may be something that customers can resolve themselves. For these companies, should help customers learn the product or service. For complex products and service, companies need to find a way to deliver information and support that encourages self-service.
Many companies put out their content on their website but may not integrate it with the online community. A well-integrated community enables companies to provide the latest information and support.
Expectations: Companies often focus on how much value customers would deliver and this can often lead to dissatisfaction due to increasing expectations. Dissatisfied customers may not return and may resort to social media to air their grievance.
Companies need to ensure people know what they can expect when they sign on a customer. One way is to provide a detailed list of services offered. This also sets the minimum standard for the support teams. Prepare additional guidelines to empower the team to deliver additional support as required.
These minimum requirements also serve as the baseline for investments to be made. Companies can invest the required resources to deliver optimal levels of service. When the service levels are consistent, customers have a baseline for the experience they receive.
Empowerment: Companies must understand the customer journey, their needs to empower customers and give them options. Meeting customer needs requires providing the right end-to-end services.
In the case of B2B products, especially in software, companies may bundle more feature into the product assuming that the more the better. But this may backfire. Customers may not buy the product as they may not require the additional features. They may also be put off by this bait and switch tactic.
By engaging customers in ways to encourage them to help themselves and others, by having clarity on what is offered and offering options to enable the desired outcome, companies can respond to today' challenges and be in a position to reap the benefits.
How to deliver great customer experience at scale
by Dutta Satadip SnB 202012
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