Developing the best customer experience is one of the top agendas of all most all organisations. Realizing how digital disruption is shaking them up, most organisations have left with no other option. It is kind of either do it or just shut down the business. Even new roles like Chief Customer Experience Officer (CXO) have been formed, and millions of dollars have been allocated for developing the customer experience. However, has it worked? Well, I am just judging this only based on my experience.
Last week I rang my bank as I needed to apply for a loan. I was on hold for nearly 7 minutes (not that bad), and I was talking to the call centre guy for about 6 minutes, and then I was put on hold again for another 11 minutes to connect to the right advisor.
Then I was talking to Gaby (fictitious name) — a specialist on the matter I wanted to settle. I explained everything, and after about another 10 minutes, I was told to visit the bank. She offered to book an appointment at the nearest branch. I gave my consent, and she confirmed that an appointment is booked at the branch and she gave me the address. I was happy, and I hung up. By then, I have spent nearly 39 minutes end to end.
Following day, I went to the branch during my lunch hour and approached the reception and explained everything and Gaby’s confirmation of my appointment. The guy at the reception told me he is the one whom to assist in those matters, but he has not got an appointment and asked me to come back next week. I went to an explanation. However, he spends time explaining the process and requirement of having an appointment. I turned and came back, but on the way, I realise this is not what they advertise on TV. Customer experience is one of their big marketing campaigns, but it does not seem practical, at least with my case.
I went back to the branch while dialing the call centre again, and I asked for Gaby, which I got on hold after another eight more minutes. I explained the situation and asked her to fix the issue, and I handed over the phone to the guy whom I talked previously to discuss and settle it. Banker closed the door behind me, and I heard the heated conversation they had. After ten more minutes guy handed over the phone back to me. Gaby ton the phone explained to me that unfortunately the appointment she set on the previous day has not reached the banker hence she asked me to come back next week. I declined on the spot. I explained to her I have now spent more than one-hour end to end, and now if I have to wait till next day, I better cross the street and go the other bank and never to return this bank.
Well, the guy, then took the phone back from me, talked to Gaby and took me to consultation. I got my job finished within the next thirty minutes. He explained that the call centre system had not sent an email or a system notification to them; hence, even though she has set the appointment, it has not reached the banker at the branch.
Whom to blame? The system who did not send the notifications or the banker or the call centre or the bank who did not understand how to implement customer experience?
How to implement customer experience
Developing customer-centric experience undoubtedly is one of the main strategic objectives of all organisations. However, one of the most prominent mistake organisations doing while implementing that is focusing only on the customer touch points. That means most of the organisations are spending millions of dollars only to improve where customers are interacting. As an example, in the above example, they may be spending money to build new software or customer space modernization at the call center or the branch. However, what is happening at the backend is call-center does not have a real-time interaction or integration with the branch office bankers’ systems.
If there were such a system, Gaby should be able to see Bankers calendar, and match that with the customer’s availability and book the appointment which banker as well as the customer is notified with the appointment via emails, text on the phone. Moreover, the customer will be called fifteen minutes before the appointment to remind, and probably it will display the map on the shortest route to get to the branch based on where the customer is located at that moment. Such solutions are touching the customer as well as the employees of the organisations.
That is nothing but systems thinking. Such customer experience is enabled using customer experience design, digital-omni channel, cloud-based technologies, big data and organisational change management. Any of these in isolation will end up in bad customer experiences that I went through and bad employee experience that banker and Gaby went through. Customer experience design, hence, is not a simple tick box. It is a severe transformation which every business division must undergo.
