The voice of the customer is probably the most important thing for any organization to look at. That voice can help companies to understand what customers are saying about your brand and use it to inform decisions about marketing, servicing and channels, and take meaningful action.
Krissy Espindola, director of Knowledge Management and Social Customer Support for T-Mobile USA
The customer journey unfolds every minute of every day, every time a customer interacts with a company, across any channel, and at any point along the customer lifecycle.
A Map is Important for Any Journey
Organizations often seek to capture the journey, in all of its twists and turns, through a process called “customer experience mapping.” Mapping is a way for companies to follow in their customers’ footsteps, to see what’s working and what’s not.
In addition, a company that manages complete journeys would not only do its best for the individual transaction, but would also seek to understand the broader reasons for the interaction. It would address the root causes, and create feedback loops to continuously improve interactions upstream and downstream from the interaction.
Requirements for an Optimal Solution
So, what does a customer journey optimization (CJO) solution require, in order to be effective and address the challenges common to service providers across the globe?
First, there’s a need to understand that CJO is not just technology or a group of people collaborating. It’s a combination of both. Looking at specific functionalities, there are four key requirements that are needed for CJO today:
- Cross-channel interaction management. Today, people interact with customer service through numerous channels (an average of 6.1 channels, based on a recent NICE Systems survey).
- Identify the root causes of repeat contacts across communication channels, in order to fix processes and address issues in real time.
- Drive employee performance, in order to maximize first contact resolution.
- Leveraging interactions and transaction analytics, for a complete view of the customer journey and an understanding of patterns and trends.
The Payoff of an Optimized Journey
Service organizations seeking to understand and optimize the customer journey must focus on what customers expect from their experience, and modify touch points and processes accordingly.
Optimizing a customer journey provides lots of dividends. Companies that succeed in doing so, and excel in delivering positive journey experiences, tend to win in the market.
To learn more about how to optimize a customer’s journey, click here.