Customers value their relationships with the brands they trust. If their experience is anything short of stellar, the company could lose that customer forever. Customer experience has become a major driver of customer loyalty and success. Companies that prioritize customer experience are 60% more profitable than their non-customer-focused counterparts. Translation: it pays to be customer-centric.
This blog dives into the intricacies of customer experience management and why organizations should prioritize their customers. We also discuss how predictive technology like AI-enabled virtual agents can identify the next best action to boost overall customer experiences.
What is Customer Experience Management?
As technology becomes more advanced, businesses should consider which tools can help them place customers at the center of their strategies.
Customer experience management, also known as CXM, implements customer-centric strategies and technologies to improve customer engagement, satisfaction, and experience. Customer experience management focuses on the tools an organization can use to personalize the entire customer experience. One example is “next best action” – more on that later.
People might confuse customer experience management with customer relationship management (CRM). However, there are a few key differences. CRM is a set of strategies and technologies companies utilize to manage and understand customer relationships throughout the customer lifecycle. While they appear similar, customer experience management takes CRM further – it implements solutions that place the customer experience at the center of business decision-making. These services include technology and processes that solely exist to make customer communication seamless.
It’s important to distinguish that customer experience management evolves current customer service operations (e.g., CRM) to uplevel customer experiences.
What is Next Best Action?
Next best action is a customer experience management tool. It uses predictive technology that routes customers to the most appropriate support solution. In customer communication, an IVA interacts with a customer, considers all possible routes for the interaction, and chooses the best one using AI. The IVA will then proactively offer a solution or connect customers to the most relevant agent through automatic call distribution (ACD).
The IVA makes its decision after it analyzes available data — such as account information, previous customer service interactions, and stated preferences. An IVA uses the information it gathers from initial conversations to predict what support a customer might need. This ability to learn from previous interactions allows next best action capabilities to improve constantly. Its continuous improvement then translates into more accurate customer service and relevant customer communications.
Enhance Customer Communication with Next Best Action
Next best action solutions move an organization’s customer service process and focus from product and service-centric to customer-centric. This means that the priority of a customer service interaction is to select the best option for that specific caller.
Therefore, the role next best action plays in customer experience management is straightforward: identify the best resolution option for each customer. The predictive technology streamlines customer communication and personalizes the interaction to speed up resolution.
Customer experience management initiatives that harness next best action tools offer a level of personalization that increases customer loyalty.
Benefits of Customer Experience Management
Customer experience management benefits both the business and the customer. The organizational benefits of customer experience management include increased profits, customer retention, and brand loyalty. At the same time, customers experience greater satisfaction due to personalized customer service experiences.
Below are four benefits for companies that embrace customer experience management.
#1: Insight into Customer Needs
Using key performance indicators (KPIs), organizations can gather data on customer sentiment and preferences across all facets of the customer relationship. Customer experience management uses relevant customer data to personalize experiences based on customer communication preferences and past interactions.
#2: Competitive Advantage
Studies show that customers are willing to pay 10% more on a purchase if they know they will receive quality customer service. Customer service sets the stage for quality and enables brands to provide excellent customer experiences. If customers don’t receive the premier experiences they expect, they will take their business to competitors.
#3: Improved Customer Retention
96% of consumers factor in customer service quality when they determine which companies they will continue to give their business. The nature of customer experience management will involve customer service and improving how customers interact with service representatives. Companies that invest in robust customer experience management will be able to foster loyalty and improve retention.
#4: Informed Decision-Making
Customer experience management constantly gathers valuable insights about customer preferences. Insights can include preferred communication channels, native languages, etc. These real-time insights translate into action through the implementation of customer engagement strategies that align with customer data. This approach helps the entire organization make data-driven, customer-focused business decisions.
How to Implement Customer Experience Management
Intelligent tools bolster customer experience management strategies. IVAs provide visibility into the customer lifecycle — a critical step to successful customer experience management.
An IVA like Mosaicx is an AI-enabled communication tool that generates personalized responses to users. IVAs are intuitive and can understand natural-language requests through natural language understanding or natural language processing. These tools collect customer data during calls and turn said data into qualitative insights into customers’ needs, preferences, and overall satisfaction.
IVAs are also effective in engaging customers. The technology offers multiple customer communication channels, such as via phone, text or email. Multichannel support allows customers to engage with your company in the way that is most comfortable for them. This improves engagement and offers them a sense of freedom that drives satisfaction.
Since IVAs collect customer data over time, they can offer customers next best action suggestions. This capability helps businesses understand their customer’s needs and anticipate how those needs might change. Mosaicx prioritizes customer experience management through our next best action capabilities. This allows our customers to take action — and personalize that action — before a negative experience occurs.
How to Measure Customer Experience
Customer satisfaction KPIs are an effective way to measure customer experience sentiment. Potential KPIs include net promoter score, churn and retention rate, and customer lifetime value. For an extensive list, check out our customer service vs. customer experience blog.
KPIs that measure customer experience provide businesses with the much-needed insight to integrate customer experience management into their operations. IVAs support those efforts. They track and implement learnings from customer communications so companies can improve and measure customer experience.
Customer-centric strategies deliver value but rely on customer experience management to be effective. With intelligent and intuitive virtual agents, business leaders have access to insights that can put customer needs at the center of decision-making.