Elingo highlights research which shows while the type of industry will greatly influence CX, ultimately it is a matter of choice and first contact resolution.

The importance of customer experience (CX) and the value a business places on the experience clearly depends on the industry – but when customers have the option to choose, CX becomes critical.

This is one of the key takeaways from research The Genesys State of Customer Experience conducted and released by Genesys.

Elingo, a leading ICT services and solutions provider and certified value-added Genesys reseller, is eager to share the value of this insight.

The research reveals how consumers prefer to interact with a business, what they value most when engaging with a business, what personal information they are willing to share in exchange for a better experience and what businesses miss when it comes to delivering an exceptional experience across their customers' journeys.

Joshua Solani, CX Advisor, highlights the point that choice rules customer experience.

"Some industries face fierce competitive pressures - where the customer experience literally can make or break a business. In other industries, such as government agencies, competition isn't a factor. For example, renewing your driver's license isn't always classified as a ‘great experience', but there's nowhere else to go. When consumers have the option to choose, the customer experience is critical."

Solving the problem first time was identified as key criteria to CX. According to the research, 29% of customers value first contact resolution the highest when it comes to customer service and support interaction.

"It is also interesting to note that many businesses fall short of the mark when it comes to the expectation of immediate service. It is vitally important to initiate a mobile-first strategy, in other words engage with customers on their terms. Your customer experience reputation and brand are at stake when you make your customers wait for assistance, regardless of the channel. This is driving growth in service channels that offer more immediate response, like social and self-service," says Solani.

Effective CX management

Elingo's CX Advisor says it was also evident from the research that customer experience management remains siloed and this presents the business with a real challenge.

Solani says that effective CX management takes collaboration and coordination across multiple organisations.

There are a few tactics that can be used to help the decision maker, he adds.

"Know your customers. There are segmentation strategies to get you started. It's equally important to obtain a clear picture of how customers want to engage and interact with your business. Ongoing customer segmentation activities are crucial, as is understanding the lifetime value of each customer and segment. Another important factor is customer experience tracking. Customer longevity/loyalty and customer lifetime value are most frequently tracked as components of the customer experience tracking effort; marketing is more likely to report repurchase timing than customer care managers, and surprisingly less than 30% of companies overall track channel preference."

However, truly getting to know- and understand the customer means gathering data and utilising this information strategically.

Solani says it is incredibly important to use data to guide decisions. "Providing customers with a seamless journey often means anticipating their needs and using analytics to make informed decisions and guide the next action. This is what often is called a ‘journey nudge'. Nearly nine of ten consumers value their customer service agent knowing their account history and current activities, and seven in ten value having the same customer service agent help them each time."

One of the most important areas of the overall CX to keep in mind is the manner in which a customer engages with a business or service provider.

The research shows that channel switching is the new norm and timing is everything with channels.

"There are ramifications when your business does not support a seamless customer journey. Channel switching is the new normal when it comes to how consumers engage with a business. And there is a cost for businesses that don't support channel switching," Solani warns.

In essence, value-add to the customer means creating and ensuring a 360-degree customer experience and this is based on several best practices for managing customer journeys.

"This means – know your customer, use journey mapping and use the right technology," Solani adds.

For more information, guidance and/or to discuss the report in more detail, contact Elingo at www.elingo.co.za