Ensuring a business has happy customers is no longer solely about the careful upkeep of intelligently designed in-person touchpoints. It’s about ensuring the digital experience is equal to – or sometimes even better – than talking to someone face-to-face.

Brands must consider every element along the customer journey, enhancing their contact with customers through the smart use of technology that enhances – and never detracts – from the overall customer experience.

That can be a challenge, admits Lisa Steele, customer services director at BGL Insurance. “If customers do not like the overall customer experience, it’s now easier than ever for them to simply take their custom to another provider,” she says. Keeping customer experience high results in higher customer retention rates – and in turn, loyalty.

How digital changed everything

“The digital experience has significantly shifted how companies think about customer engagement, with the need for continuous analysis in how both online activity and live services combine to deliver the overall customer experience,” Steele says. For BGL’s customers, how they interact with the firm is irrelevant. “They expect to receive a consistent experience whenever and however they engage with a business.”

That means the technologies deployed need to be carefully considered so they meet the needs of customers, who demand high-quality service from brands they interact with. Six in 10 UK consumers are more likely to buy again from brands that treat them as if they’re an individual, rather than just another name in a long list.

Companies must remember that people-based, tech-enabled solutions are the most effective at elevating brands – particularly when it comes to customer loyalty. Value-generating conversations are better placed with humans, not bots. Companies must consider that people should be enhanced – not replaced – by tools like AI

“The Covid-19 crisis has been a dramatic catalyst for digital acceleration across all sectors, forcing businesses to change how they communicate with customers,” says Lou Blatt, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at OpenText. “The ability to deliver rich, ultra-personalised communications at scale, across all touch points and channels, is now mission-critical for acquiring, developing and retaining customers.” Investing in a digital experience platform that can provide all those steps seamlessly across the online and offline world, and multiple devices, is a challenge.

Picking your platform

Customers now choose to communicate with businesses on their terms thanks to the panoply of different methods available to them. It’s no longer possible to channel customers into using a call centre or asking questions and querying orders at a specific time, says Roger Beadle, co-founder and CEO of customer experience platform Limitless. “This means offering a strong customer experience in the channel of the customer’s choosing – not the other way around – in line with the customer’s schedule,” he says. “Personalisation and convenience go hand-in-hand when it comes to customer retention, and customers now expect a brand to follow their every move.”

The temptation to place all your bets on artificial intelligence and chatbots to handle the potential deluge of contact you’re likely to expect is apparent. But doing so without carefully considering the quality of contact, alongside the forecast quantities, is a risk. “Investing in customer communication technology is all well and good,” says Beadle. “But companies must remember that people-based, tech-enabled solutions are the most effective at elevating brands – particularly when it comes to customer loyalty. Value-generating conversations are better placed with humans, not bots. Companies must consider that people should be enhanced – not replaced – by tools like AI.”

Instead, you can intelligently triage customers through pre-existing tools in large service platforms that integrate with some of the most common methods of communication customers want to use. WhatsApp’s business API is a “game-changer from an effort perspective – it allows customers to get both time and control back,” says Jonathan Stephens of management consultancy BearingPoint. “It means they can move service interactions onto their mobile devices and handle them in their own time in a channel that is already well integrated into their daily life, rather than being tied to a webchat window on the business’s website until the query is resolved.”

Staying loyal

Using pre-existing services such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger that customers already know and love has another halo effect, says Stephens: “Loyalty is likely to be naturally improved as the business is now in the customer’s recent conversations, with full chat history and can be called upon with the same ease as your best mate.”

Brands have traditionally looked to omnichannel customer experiences to maintain loyalty. But that doesn’t provide the best experience, reckons Tue Søttrup, chief customer experience evangelist at Dixa, a platform provider. “Instead, what brands should now be looking at is how they can enable a ‘multi-experience’ CX strategy,” he says. By exponentially increasing the number of methods you communicate with customers, you are “natively integrating emerging touchpoints, as well as making it easy for agents to deliver a holistic experience across any and all modes of communication.” That of course requires bringing all those customer contacts into one centralised system that keeps track of communications. Cycling apparel company Rapha brought together all its customer contacts into one system and saw customer retention rates increase 17%.

BGL Insurance also went through a similar process when it recognised the importance of using communications tech to bolster its service. “The future of customer services sees the contact centre being an integral part of the overall customer journey and not simply remaining as a traditional, single channel, telephony contact centre,” says Steele.

It may seem difficult, but it’s vital. Engendering loyalty through the smart deployment and use of customer experience technology – and truly integrating it into a company’s communications system, rather than simply layering it on top – reaps rewards in the long run. One of the biggest worries for companies trying to improve their customer experience abilities is the cost associated with doing so. But focusing on that overlooks a bald fact: acquiring customers comes at a greater cost than keeping them.

Customer experience is vital for all stakeholders. But it’s not just the public with whom businesses need to bolster their communications. Customer experience doesn’t solely include external stakeholders, but also those with one foot inside and outside the business, such as contractors, franchisees or suppliers. “In the same way everyone’s a critic, everyone’s a customer too,” jokes Scott Brinker, vice president of the platform ecosystem at HubSpot. “Business buyers expect the same frictionless and streamlined customer experience in their business-to-business interactions that they receive from consumer sales,” adds John Bruno, vice president of strategy at PROS, an omnichannel sales platform.

So too should firms build a unified business through smart communications with all of their audiences. Having a people-centric vision can boost businesses and make it easier for them to grow together and maintain healthy relationships with key stakeholders. “If we take care of our employees, we are underlining how important customer-centric behaviours are in our culture,” says Michelle MacCarthy, global head of customer success at enterprise software firm Unit4. “It encourages our teams to take the same approach with our customers.”

Unit4 has seen an improvement in stakeholder experience by thinking deeply about how it can help smooth the process of interacting with the firm. The company designed an AI-powered digital assistant, Wanda, that helped customers and outside stakeholders interact with its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. “Traditionally, users would have to go into the ERP application and fill out complex forms, which are time consuming,” says MacCarthy. Using an AI assistant to automate these tasks helps to create more of a self-service experience, allowing users to communicate with the ERP application from one preferred location, whether that is Microsoft Teams or Slack.” The goal was to free up time from mundane administration, and instead to allow stakeholders to spend it driving value to their respective organisations.

Saving costs and streamlining processes

“Businesses need to think more broadly when considering the impacts of unified customer experiences,” says Benedict Ireland, chief experience officer at Unlimited, which works with the likes of BMW, Lexus and Canon. “Understanding the opportunities for internal cost saving, process streamlining or eradication and of equal importance in most instances.” Take Uber: the app’s ability to onboard and support drivers by removing friction means it has been able to provide a supply of drivers to match passenger demand, helping the business grow at such a prodigious rate.

It’s the same reason why doctors choose to work with Bupa: its interconnected and integrated communications platform, Babylon – and the way its apps all link together – help reduce friction and encourage doctors to sign up. “Babylon is a good example of a joined-up service that not only works better, but provides efficiencies and savings along the way,” says Ireland. Because they know that the communications platform won’t be a pain, doctors sign up to triage cases and care for patients through Bupa, with the confidence that they’ll be spending more time seeing patients and less time filling out paperwork or trying to find the right person to contact in the event of needing support.

Bupa recognised the importance of seamless communications to engendering goodwill among stakeholders; something that’s vital for a company that trades on the service its people provide to patients. But it’s a blueprint that can be used elsewhere, says Ireland. “AI and data tools are great examples where understanding the art of the possible is key to truly leveraging the potential of implementing them in the most effective way,” he adds. “Implemented well, they’ll have a big impact. But implemented really well, they’ll identify opportunities you’d not otherwise notice.”

Redrawing businesses and building reputations

Global computer coding platform GitHub used to rely on homegrown solutions to handle support requests from staff and customers. But as the business grew, it quickly realised its hodge-podge solution wouldn’t work. Different teams used different tools, making it impossible to get a top-down view of where issues arose. By utilising a single communications platform to triage and act upon support tickets, GitHub has been able to grow further, including its support operations, without draining the company’s engineering resources. It’s a model for the future; one other firms would do well to follow.

AI and data tools are great examples where understanding the art of the possible is key to truly leveraging the potential of implementing them in the most effective way. Implemented well, they’ll have a big impact. But implemented really well, they’ll identify opportunities you’d not otherwise notice

Better communication not only unlocks new opportunities in businesses and helps identify pinch points, but it also reduces revenue loss in another way; happy customers – whether contractors or franchisees – are customers who’ll stick with a business. HubSpot research shows 36% of business-to-business buyers have withdrawn from a purchase because they couldn’t contact anyone to help them with their enquiry.

“It unquestionably impacts a company’s bottom line,” says Brinker – but it isn’t just detrimental to sales either. “The reputational damage that can come from a company complaining about an inability to get hold of a representative on the phone on social media and review sites is significant,” he adds. “Consider how siloed and reliant on social media people have become over the course of the pandemic, and it can’t be overestimated how important it’s become to cut through that noise and speak to your customer directly.”

Those customers, of course, also include a brand’s own employees and stakeholders. Giving workers a route to communicate clearly and raise issues, when necessary, not only makes a business more harmonious and unified, but also helps its leaders focus on building, rather than firefighting.

The eve of the festive season is the perfect time to reflect on the seismic changes triggered by the coronavirus crisis in the rapidly advancing customer experience space. And, more interestingly, to scan ahead to 2022 and consider what the near future holds, as organisations of all sizes look to elevate their CX to the next level. 

The pandemic forced both businesses and their customers to embrace digital technology and transformed consumer behaviours and expectations. Nasdaq’s 2017 prediction that ecommerce will account for 95% of UK retail sales by 2040 can be confidently brought forward, possibly by a decade. 

Consumers want a friction-free omnichannel purchasing experience, and this shift has necessitated a change in how brands communicate. Now they have to be more conversational – primarily through social messaging channels, which enjoyed a 110% rise in popularity for customer support in 2020, compared to the previous year, according to Zendesk. SMS and texting also rose by 75%, while in-app messaging also surged by 36%.

More recent global OpenText research, published in July, highlights how the demand for a good digital-first customer experience has skyrocketed, with 59% of respondents saying a personalised digital experience is crucial to becoming a repeat customer. Meanwhile, almost three-quarters (72%) indicate that having an excellent digital customer experience is a key factor in purchasing decisions.

The direction of travel is clear. No wonder many business leaders are asking me: “How could – and should – my brand be deepening the conversations we have, first to attract and then retain custom?”

Listen and learn: meet your customers on their preferred channel

Indeed, conversational commerce is becoming a critical retail trend, and by leveraging customer data, the more personalised CX is rewarding for buyers and sellers. Juniper Research forecasts the total addressable market in this space will be worth $27bn  by 2025, rising from less than $10m this last year. 

The study hints that brands willing to invest in a retail computer solution (RCS) – effectively a communications protocol that enables rich media messaging services, such as chatbots and in-app payments, over cellular networks – will likely enjoy a decent competitive advantage over rivals.

In October, Vonage was very excited to announce its acquisition of Jumper.ai, whose platform creates omnichannel, messaging-first customer engagement and shopping journeys across social, messaging, and web. The range spans WhatsApp, Messenger, Apple Business Chat, Instagram, Twitter, SMS, Google Ads, brand websites and more.

This comes at a time when there is an apparent demand for improved digital communications. Some organisations are taking steps to upgrade their conversational capabilities quicker than others, though. For instance, an alarming 70% of 18- to 24-year-olds have missed public sector appointments due to communication issues since the start of the pandemic, our research finds. 

However, this lag possibly indicates the digital transformation challenges experienced by larger organisations lumbered with legacy systems and siloed data. And in mitigation, when you think about it, the pace of change has been incredible; we are very comfortable having back-to-back video conferencing meetings now, but many people hadn’t used this technology two years ago.

How the right strategic partner can take you to the next level

Businesses of other sizes and ages have different barriers to overcome. For example, agile tech start-ups with digital-native leaders might struggle to scale. And SMEs who have had their eyes opened by the vast potential of ecommerce and selling to over 200 countries around the world, in theory, have to accommodate a wider group of customers, and keep communicating.

“By 2023,” Gartner predicts, “over 75% of all customer communication management implementations will be cloud or hybrid solutions. The need for change is being driven by the wholesale redesign of CX across digital and non-digital channels.”

With the right strategic partner, there is a huge opportunity for all businesses to use a vendor offering unified communication, cloud computing and Application Programming Interface (API) capabilities altogether. This unholy trinity will ensure they have code-level control over their destinies and deliver the joined-up solutions customers crave.

For those looking to reach the next level of CX, it’s worth noting Forrester’s Vonage-backed research, published in mid-October. It shows 98% of organisations embracing communications platform as a service (CPaaS) technology are “very or extremely effective” at getting their customers the content they need or want, compared to just 37% of non-CPaaS users.

Finally, while investing in tech is critical to elevate CX – whether enhancing an app or mobile solution – to maximise the opportunity, it is vital to match it with the requisite skill sets, either in-house or via the trusted strategic partner. 

For 2022 and beyond, to excel at CX it’s what you know, and who you know.

Learn more about Vonage

Managing and improving customer experience is a continual process for businesses. It requires ensuring that customers are happy and informed throughout the entirety of their interactions with a business’ services. And for chief technology officers (CTOs) and chief digital officers (CDOs), it has never been more important to properly manage those interactions.

Brokering good experiences has never been more important, nor has it had higher stakes.

How should organisations keep that communication positive? This toolkit can help.

Smartly deploy AI

You’ve decided to deploy customer experience technology for the first time. It can be a big undertaking, and a difficult step to make. But it’s important to know what it can and can’t do. “Integrating AI into customer service operations can absolutely make [businesses] more efficient,” says Simon Johnson, general manager for the UK and Ireland at global customer experience technology provider Freshworks. “It can also help them get a clear picture of their customers, their purchasing behaviours and previous interactions.”

Bring everything under one umbrella

The same applies to keeping customer communications and touchpoints within a single app. Services like Uber manage this process well, keeping all elements of how a customer could interact with an app under the same umbrella. It allows organisations the ability to monitor and track how they communicate with a customer and helps harness any data produced to ensure the best possible experience.

Know when to stand back, and when to intervene

Customer experiences are increasingly automated, which can improve productivity and efficiency and reduce costs within organisations and services. But making sure you intelligently use them is vital, says Johnson. “Chatbots can also proactively assist customers by anticipating what they need,” he says. “Chatbots also identify the context of a customer enquiry. This lets agents pick up where the chatbot left off when needed, saving the customer the inconvenience of explaining the issue again.”

Make every experience a learning one

You won’t get things right immediately when it comes to customer experience, says Alex Thomson, head of EMEA operations for continuous product design pioneer Quantum Metric. But every mistake is a learning experience. “All of this is customer behaviour that can be monitored,” Thomson says. “By having technical steps in place that recognise a frustrated customer, businesses can turn frustration into a quality proactive touchpoint.”

Measure the right successes

“It’s also important to know exactly how you’ll measure the success of the new technology,” warns Thomas Rødseth, chief technology officer at European contact centre as a service provider Puzzel. “Are you looking to improve your NPS, conversion, efficiency or technological renewal? Having a clear idea of what you want to achieve will help you identify where the technology will fit best in the customer journey.”

Choose wisely

With so many different providers out there, it can be difficult to narrow down your choice to one company that can provide a smooth communications experience out of the box that’s tailored to your area of business. The CTO or CDO’s most important job, then, isn’t necessarily to guide the adoption of customer experience once it’s arrived, but instead, to set the ship on the right course to start with. “Select your vendor carefully,” says Rødseth. “Early experiences with chatbots and other forms of automated CX are not always positive for customers, so you’ll want to work with a vendor that understands the value of human-led experiences as well as AI and automation.”