An experience centric customer demands more than just quality products—they expect seamless, personalised interactions that leave a lasting impression at every touchpoint.
The power that a good customer experience yields cannot be underestimated. Research tells us that 80% of customers believe the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services and that the majority of customers are willing to pay more for better CX. However, with almost three-quarters of shoppers saying they will abandon a brand after three or fewer bad experiences it’s imperative to get that experience right.
So how can retailers meet the needs of a more experience-centric customer?
Enter the Contact Centre
As the intermediary between customer and retailer, the Contact Centre has a vital role to play in the delivery of exceptional customer experiences. By addressing customer concerns, improving first-contact resolution, and delivering the consistent and personalised interactions that customers crave, the Contact Centre can create moments that matter for customers and build long-term loyalty.
How successful a Contact Centre is rests, however, on its ability to deliver an exemplary customer service in a way that suits the customer. Personalised experience is a must here for the experience centric customer – with 76% of consumers saying they get frustrated if they don’t receive one – as is interacting with customers via their preferred channels.
The importance of digital
Research from ContactBabel highlights that Contact Centres are actually ahead here – with agents “consistently handling a greater proportion of interactions through email than an average UK business”. Social media use is also “considerably” above average – a bonus given McKinsey’s estimate that customers will spend 20-40% more with brands that respond to requests via social media.
Taking this one step further, social listening is rising in status within the Contact Centre (and out of the realms of marketing) to be seen as a valuable tool to allow teams to understand more about customer preferences, ward off crises and improve brand health. Whether it’s acknowledging customer feedback via social media to further promote a brand, or proactively posting updates on any outages or disruption to service, social listening can engage the customer and improve their perception, and more importantly, their experience with a brand.
Even something as seemingly simple as monitoring social media channels and interjecting when a customer is vocalising their discontent can serve a valuable purpose – allowing for a speedier resolution and demonstrating the brand’s commitment to delivering a stellar customer service – all within a very public forum.
Embracing AI in retail
As the hot tech topic of the moment, it should come as no surprise that another way to enhance the customer experience lies in the effective use of AI. Over half of Contact Centres are now estimated to have an AI-centric strategy – with use cases varying form speeding up call handling, to simplifying processes and resolving queries more easily.
Other uses include the provision of AI-powered chatbots which help customers to self-serve and Agent-Assist and Knowledge Management tools which provide agents with real-time information to better, and more quickly assist customers. In addition, speech and text analytics can help retailers to analyse voice and text conversations with customers at speed to identify trends and flag any hurdles in service delivery – enhancing the overall experience delivered.
Meeting the needs of the experience centric customer
There are, quite clearly, a plethora of ways in which organisations – through their Contact Centres – can engage the experience centric shopper. By harnessing the power of AI, automation and social listening, and opening up the lines of communication to meet the needs of shoppers, Contact Centres can deliver an enhanced, personalised customer experience with every interaction.
If you’d like to speak to IPI about how to deliver this and more, get in touch.
