In
recent times, the number of touch points through which a customer can contact
an organisation has geometrically increased. Apart from an organisation's
physical location, there are other ways customers may contact organisations
which could be through the contact centre or by social media. In a bid to
ensure the ship runs smoothly, each of these units or departments is led by
someone in charge of the daily operations who marshals the troops so that there
is leadership, direction, coordination and to ensure little or nothing falls
through the cracks.
While
this system of operation is good, organisations will need to take it a step
further by looking at their operations through the eyes of the customer to
truly understand that customers go through journeys in getting service and may
contact one or more touch points to get that service, hence there should be a
shift from just touch point management to journey management.
The
present-day journey of a customer is more tilted in favour of the organisation,
with the customer having to go through hoops because the journey is the result
of individual departmental efforts, which most times are siloed and not
aligned, creating bad experiences for customers.
Understanding
the customer's journey is about learning what customers experience from the
moment they begin considering a purchase, and then working to make the journey
towards buying a product or service as simple, clear, and efficient as
possible.
The
customer journey is very crucial; what does it take for a customer to get
service from your organisation? There are some organisations that just the
thought of visiting brings a shiver to the spine of the customer because one
seems to have to pass through the eye of a needle, from waiting lines to
filling forms, to moving from one department to the other involving the
customers contacting different touch points.
According
to Parature, a CRM Software company, an average customer uses an average of
four channels to communicate with a brand, the most popular ones being physical
visits and via the contact centre, it is therefore crucial that an organisation
should support as many contact options as possible and ensure a consistent
experience across all.
It's
not enough to simply provide a range of contact options in the contact page of
the website-a true Omni-channel customer experience is the new standard.
Companies and organisations should take steps to ensure that customers and
their preferences are remembered and cut across all channels.
For
instance, if a query starts by a physical visit and the customer chooses to
continue the interaction later via phone, they should not have to explain from
the beginning, which is usually the norm today, leaving the customer to narrate
the issues afresh to each person or department he comes across. An average bank
has at least six or seven online touch points for engagement apart from
physical locations such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Youtube
channel, Snap chat, but how well do these offline and online elements integrate?
Can I make a complaint at a branch and finish it off online? This is why it is
crucial to manage the journey and not just the touch points.
Organisations
that are unable to create seamless journeys across their touch points usually
have a high number of customers that are not satisfied, cranky and burnt out
employees, high call rates, defections and churn, as not everyone has the
patience and time to stick to an organisation which cannot put its house in
order, especially in a competitive market. On the other hand, organisations
that have smooth customer journeys have lower call rates, happy customers, high
referral rates and of course are better at retaining their customers and
getting new customers.
A
critical look needs to be taken at the different units in the organisation to
ensure that all are aligned. For instance, the sales team may be meeting their
targets and selling products to customers, but the sales team may not be
properly educating the customer on what he is buying into, the options available
and how to navigate through the product; what happens then is that a problem is
created for the operation or retention team or the call centre, who the
customer has to contact to solve the problems created and the cycle goes on and
on. The sales team looks good and the operations team too looks like one that
is engaged, solving customer's queries which should not have arisen in the
first place, if proper education was carried out.
To look at journeys
effectively, the cap of transactional thinking has to be removed and the garb
of relational thinking needs to be adorned, a trade off will have to be made,
metrics will need to be adjusted such that the sales team will not be just
rewarded for closing a sale but for keeping that customer for at least a
period, in exchange for lesser target. This will be more profitable for the
company as a better percentage of its customers will be retained, since the end
users are more engaged and more educated by the sales team.
SOURCE: THE PUNCH.