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November 12, 2012

Why the Customer Experience Matters

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

The customer experience – it’s something considered so critical that companies throughout the global marketplace are making strategic investments to ensure their dominant place in the market. But not all companies are measuring the customer experience through all channels. Unless there is a specific focus on integrating customer care across all channels, service overall can suffer.



A recent ZDNet article highlights the negative impact when consistent quality care across the channels is not a priority.  The guilty company named in the article provided  the writer with a customer experience, as shocking and even ridiculous. When trying to get in touch with the contact center to find a resolution to his problem, the writer found the experience to be a little less than stellar.

After taking three minutes to get through the interactive options to finally receive the “We’re really busy right now” recording, he waited only an additional minute before a helpful individual came on the line.

This individual became a little less helpful when a wrong address was discovered to be associated with the writer’s account. The address had to be provided for security purposes and when the wrong one was offered, the helpful agent could no longer help. To make matters worse, he questioned whether or not the caller actually knew where he lived and asked if he was confused.

Regardless of the ending of this story, there are fatal flaws throughout. First, the agent wasn’t interested in using common sense to optimize the customer experience, the account of record was held as superior knowledge over that of the customer and a manager was not required to get on the phone right away to resolve the issue. For someone who was satisfied with his carrier to that point, jumping ship is an easy decision to make, but a costly one for the company involved.

This story doesn’t have to be attached to any one company as it could be found happening throughout multiple industries. Companies lack a clear strategy for quality customer service throughout all channels, they put priority solutions in place to protect information and common sense is removed so that the customer experience is degraded.

In commoditized industries such as these, companies cannot afford to ignore the customer experience as one bad interaction can cost that customer for life. A recent TMC (News - Alert) white paper explores the importance of the Customer Experience and what companies should be doing to protect their opportunities for growth and market dominance by integrating all channels and delivering the optimal experience through each one.

To learn more, download this white paper today.



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