May the 4th be with you: How to harness the force of good CX to build brand loyalty and devotion

Luke Skywalker is among the most influential and famous characters in recent history. He goes from a lowly moisture farmer with a knack for “bull’s-eyeing” womp rats with his T-16 skyhopper on Tatooine to a Jedi Knight and hero of the Rebellion. His journey is fraught with danger, growth, and, in the end, great success. The most powerful tool that assists Luke on this journey is the Force—a universal energy that surrounds every living soul and binds the galaxy together. Luke learns to harness this energy by becoming a Jedi, which gives him powerful abilities and guidance.

Now I am sure that while you appreciate a good Star Wars tribute, you’re wondering, “What does this have to do with improving CX?” I’ll tell you.

Each customer is the hero of their journey. Like Luke, they will need support and guidance to reach their destination. But when the “good CX force” empowers them, they can become customer experience (CX) heroes. But customers, like all heroes, need help to reach their storybook ending. Luke had Obi-wan, Han Solo, and Yoda— among others—to help him along his journey. If you have the right CX platform, your customers will have digital self-service, conversational AI, a robust knowledge management solution, and more.

But beware of Darth Vader and the power of the dark side of the CX force, such as broken chatbots, long wait times, and disconnected digital journeys. Because, as the Jedi teach, frustration leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the dark side. And the dark side of the CX force is where brand abandonment happens—from whence there is no return! When customers experience broken self-service, unintelligent bots, and unempathetic agents, their frustration rises, and it can lead to anger.

Let’s look at ways to help your “CX padawans” become CX Jedi.

Punch it, Chewy!

Han Solo’s ship, the Millennium Falcon, was the fastest in the galaxy; I mean, it did the Kessel run in 12 parsecs. Luke and Obi-wan needed to reach Aldaran as fast as possible. Lives were at stake. And while hopefully, your customers’ lives aren’t at risk, a swift resolution is paramount.

Speed has always been an important factor in customer service. That's why so much focus, time, and energy is spent on keeping wait times acceptable and satisfaction scores high. Customers get irritated and impatient when they have to wait for help. But is the demand for speed increasing?

A recent Salesforce study found that 83% of customers expect immediate engagement when contacting a company. That was a five-point increase from the prior year! So, yes, the need for speed is growing.

Modern consumers want instant gratification in everything they do, including customer service experiences. But as more and more businesses meet this expectation, it's less effective as a competitive differentiator. Proactive customer service is what will distinguish exceptional CX from average CX. Proactive customer service is like traveling on the Millennium Falcon, and you can't get much faster than that!

AI-powered virtual agents are a natural starting place and can provide proactive self-service. These conversational intelligent bots understand human language, allowing customers to speak naturally to resolve various tasks. Additionally, machine learning enables virtual agents to get smarter with time.

Proactive virtual agents can learn to anticipate what follow-up questions a customer would typically ask and provide the answers before the customer even asks. Businesses can optimize proactive virtual agents by placing them strategically at points in the customer journey where customers might hesitate or experience confusion.

Providing proactive customer service is worth the effort. It lifts customer satisfaction, brand advocacy, and overall CX while creating operational efficiency. Yet Gartner research found that only 13% of consumers reported receiving proactive customer service. This is a clear opportunity for businesses to differentiate themselves.

I can feel your anger

During Luke’s final encounter with Emperor Palpatine, he struggled to contain his rage from the latter. Hoping to use that anger to control Luke, Palpatine tried to encourage those feelings to rise and boil over, making Luke susceptible to suggestions. Your self-service should be doing the opposite.

Customers who contact a brand expect to find relevant information with little friction. Searching in vain across every digital channel only to have the journey break down and be met with anger-inducing comments like, “I don’t know” or “I can’t help you” is enough to frustrate any customer. 

Personalized customer interactions are even more valuable in a world with growing chatbots and artificial intelligence. Delivering a personal touch can help you stand out from competitors and build customer lifetime value (CLV). And emphasizing empathy will also make work more rewarding for your agents by assisting them to feel that their work matters and that it’s essential to your customers.

According to the 2020 Salesforce State of the Connected Customer report, 68% of customers expect brands to demonstrate empathy during all interactions. It’s the biggest driver of customer trust, satisfaction, and brand loyalty.

Regardless of the markets you serve and the size of your contact center, your customers expect to have a personalized experience and to feel understood during interactions. Personalization is the most vital driver of customer loyalty in most markets. It increases trust, satisfaction, and brand loyalty.

An agent must be able to interact empathetically for the customer to feel understood. Ensuring empathy is at the forefront of your contact center training and processes is the best way to give that human touch and set your brand apart. Many customers say empathy is the most valued characteristic of call center agents. Agents who can harness the “good force” of emotions can serve as fantastic CX guides.

Wowing your customers takes heart—it takes empathy. But how can agents focus on soft skills, such as empathy, if they are too busy seeking information? That’s where becoming an expert can improve CX. Iterable found that 83% of customers are more likely to do business with a brand they have an emotional connection with.

These aren’t the droids you’re looking for

While Luke is the chief hero of this story, he would have failed in his quest if not for the mighty Astro-droid R2-D2. This brave little machine was the difference between success and failure.

Companies must evaluate customer patterns and behaviors to meet their needs proactively. Customer demand for self-service has escalated, particularly as people become increasingly savvy with digital. Leveraging AI-driven insights to understand consumer behaviors has allowed NICE to create personalized customer experiences.

But AI alone isn’t enough. Humans and AI work in tandem to power the future and succeed. Technology provides the necessary tools—but requires engaged employees who understand how to use them. This is crucial in the CX environment, where there are so many situations in which AI alone cannot carry the entire interaction. A human touch is required to help AI decipher complex emotions and behavioral patterns.

The opportunity for AI to step in and demonstrate how it can assist agents in real-time to resolve customer needs and overcome any obstacles quickly is ripe for the picking. Delivering summaries of past customer conversations and specific AI-driven insights on the customer’s needs and potential next steps to the agent desktop can help create an empowered, well-informed agent and generate streamlined customer experiences.

AI is an advantage to customer service and should enhance the internal development of agents. It can relieve staff of mundane, repetitive tasks and engage them more with AI-driven personalized training. Empowering customer support agents through gamification and enabling staff to engage long-valued human soft skills to solve problems will create authentic connections and should be the foundation for any organization.

Do or do not; there is no try

In his search for answers, Luke was guided to Dagoba, a remote swamp planet and home to the powerful Jedi Master, Yoda. After agreeing to train the boy, Yoda imparted generations of knowledge to Luke, but only when he was ready to receive it.

Knowledge is power. Long before the days of Google, you either had to ask someone who knew or find the answer in an encyclopedia. Those days are long past. Most of the planet carries a device in their pocket that answers most of life’s questions. But that doesn’t make every answer equally good.

Customer needs are more energetic than ever. Technology capabilities are evolving daily. Business conditions are unpredictable and shift at a blistering pace. Traditional knowledge management platforms must evolve into intelligent knowledge management that enables companies to be more dynamic and data-driven to keep pace with changes affecting their activities.

Intelligence-based knowledge management systems revolutionized this process by applying AI allowing companies to analyze self-service and assisted service interaction data. This aligns everything by using specific knowledge-based articles to continuously review, update, and manage articles to align with observed changes.

Knowledge management also facilitates business transformation allowing your customer service agents to support revenue growth. This is accomplished by providing agents with playbooks and sales knowledge to optimize cross-sell and upsell opportunities. AI capabilities play a vital role in this mission. Utilizing AI, companies can automatically understand the context of a conversation and analyze the flow in the broader journey.

How companies use knowledge is crucial in adapting to changes in business conditions and customer expectations. Traditional knowledge management activities quickly fall behind those adopting intelligent knowledge management. Savvy knowledge management users rapidly find opportunities to adapt all service activities with relevant content to address customer issues. They do so with improved efficiency and observe decreased service costs and revenue growth.

Customers are the heroes of their own stories

Star Wars is one of the most beloved movie franchises of all time because it tells a timeless story to which people can connect. We relate to the characters and their struggles to overcome the overwhelming odds and help good prevail. Customers are the heroes of their own stories, but every hero needs help. And each time you guide your CX padawans to a successful resolution, your brand’s loyalty, trust, and fan base will grow.