1st Mistake : following the hype

We have seen so many hype cycles. Omni-channel, multi-channel, live chat, chat bots, self-serve deflection. We can go on and on talking about different kinds of CX hype. So let's, let's talk about hype.

Brands jump into such automations and hype without even thinking about the customer journey.

Before you jump on that automation wagon first, understand why customers are contacting you-

• What are those main reasons?
• What are those intents?
• What will be the impact on their basic needs?
• And plus, are you meeting them in the channel of their choice, or are you just automating for your own convenience?

We're building all the systems and processes. However, at the end of the day, the customer owns the customer journey, not us! And, it's important to take a step back and cater to the actual customer's customer journey, not our desired state.

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2nd Mistake : Relying TOO much on Surveys.

Relying too much on surveys or calling your surveys, your VOC program.

Okay. So. When it comes to the voice of the customer and customer surveys, I think one of the, really important things that we have to respect is any customer feedback is good. That's a gift to us as customer experience leaders. Somebody is telling you something good or bad or neutral maybe.

In reality though, customers are really smart nowadays. They've seen the survey probably 3 or 4,000 times. There's also a human bias to report the negative and the positive, right? So your customer satisfaction surveys - the science of this is extremely slanted and biased towards positive and negative.

Take the customer feedback however, the actual customer sentiment is not represented in typical customers, and it's fraught with statistical error, statistically speaking and, also biased by what you want to hear on those surveys.

It's fascinating, and some of the brightest people in an organization are tasked with doing analysis on the surveys. Now, of course, you can look at the trends in numbers. But the real value sits within the customers.

Please don't ignore your customer support conversations as part of your VOC program. The Voice of Customer cannot truly exist without support conversations.

Don’t just use actionable insight, but actually take action on your insights.

What's the best investment you have seen in CX?

Shane : The number one investment that we have or can make when it comes to customer experience is 3000000%, because I've, I've researched this, it's 3000000% in employee experience. As leaders, when we invest in our employees and they feel cared for, they can overcome any bad system, any bad process. But tripling down into the employee experience is exactly the right thing to do first.

Andy : You've got a thousand people in a contact center and training them is really hard work. So, I think it's not about training, it's about having the right environment that fosters a sense of ownership, empowerment.

So, what's really horrific is rather than empowering people and saying, Hey, it doesn't matter how long you need, if it takes 20 minutes, just nail it! Get this thing done. That is the best investment. Empowering people and giving them permission. No, you can't break an FCA guideline, but you can absolutely push the boundaries of an average handling time.’’

Any tech or AI, cannot solve basic fundamental mistakes. Any tool is to help you scale once you have nailed the basics, right? And employee experience, culture - that’s imperative to any organization.

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3rd Mistake – Is an interesting one and probably the most common one.

Here’s a clue : ****it exists in almost every organization!

We’re talking about the dangers of siloed working in the age of operation.

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👉 The bigger the organization, the bigger the problem of silos.

👉 Different teams, different KPIs, different goals, different data, different systems.

👉 Most of them don't talk to each other.

👉 No one looks at what customers want.

👉 Just their own KPIs, just their own metrics.

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Can you really deliver a successful program without bringing different teams together?

So, you've invested $10, 20, 30 million in all of these various AI tech, but you have almost always a digital team who sits separately.

Some of the biggest companies are investing tens of millions, not just in technology but in actually getting the people together. Cross-functional collaboration sounds like hard work.

You can't have a seamless journey when the intents aren't even aligned.

So, when it comes to automations how do you know where to start and what to invest in?

It should never be about a tool or an automation or an AI should always be about your customers.

Start with customer intent.

Shane: I'm a big proponent of organizations who are mitigating their weaknesses to the minimum extent you have to. If you have a bad survey or bad customer feedback, let's mitigate that. However, what are you getting great feedback on? Because that’s happening innately and organically. Focus 80% of your effort there. Mitigate your weaknesses to the minimum extent. So, 80% of your time is spent on being awesome at what you're already awesome at.’’