A generation ago, “Customer Service” (CS) and “Customer Experience” (CX) were the same. You simply had a call center or web form that took orders, gave help and advice. Companies centralized leadership in these areas with a select few, and often they were in a distant land from where sales, marketing, and product developed lived and thrived.
Today, Customer Experience must be omnipresent and a core skill for everyone on your team.
Going with a “CX Everywhere” approach shares your company’s intelligence across the organization. CX Everywhere also puts an omnichannel spin on “Customer First” cultures which place a priority on the customer.
CX is “Customer-First” thinking that Benefits your business three ways:
- Your employees gain new skills and leverage their old ones. Employee satisfaction soars. Your team becomes more accustomed to complex problem solving, unbiased critical thinking, improved people skills and make a more productive contribution to your bottom line.
- Right place, right time marketing: Imagine your customer likes to browse products on your app, but never buys until she visits your website. Recommend a great pair of shoes on your app and go with a BOGO offer when that customer visits your site. From a technology perspective, you need to invest in your customer data platform (CDP) to gather information from a range of sources, including your website, mobile app, and email marketing tools.
- Invest in new touchpoints with the customer. The rise of chat and chatbots, for instance, have revealed a whole new cost-effective way to help your customers. Learn best practices on chat and chatbots from this great primer from Nielsen Norman Group.
The truth is, omnichannel thinking has replaced the “online vs. brick-and-mortar” paradigm. We all have different habits, and our habits change. Position yourself to get information on your customer habits as they come in, and you’ll never be behind the curve acquiring, retaining and satisfying more customers each day.
Finally, your CX Everywhere strategy is at the heart of a successful digital transformation. As nearly every company in the world wrestles with the technical, operational and cultural challenges with their digital transformations, a winning customer experience strategy unifies your company around one purpose: satisfied customers.
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