The Core Tasks of Improving the Customer Journey

When an organization is embarking on a revamp of the customer experience, it can be hard for contact center managers to know which tasks to approach first. Managers wear a lot of hats when it comes to customer support, and not all of those jobs are focused on the customer. They can be therapists, babysitters, administrative wonders, paperwork shufflers and report generators. Each of these jobs draws time and energy away from the core customer support component.

For companies seeking to improve the customer experience, it’s important that they minimize the time managers spend on non-core tasks and increase the attention they can pay to improve aspects of the customer journey. A recent study by Harvard Business Review (HBR) found that companies with specific strategies for optimizing customer experience can gain a number of benefits, including an increase in revenue, more engaged employees and higher customer satisfaction.

A recent blog post by Centric Digital suggested that companies find a way to plan that puts the focus on each task on customer needs, not back-end convenience or repetitive administrative tasks.

“First, you must have a thorough and deep understanding of what your customers need,” wrote the blogger. “Each segment and demographic group may have its own unique pain points, and these should form the basis for the functions you build into your customer experience. If your core design is driven by customer needs, you can be confident you’re headed in the right direction.”

Centric Digital notes that while emerging technology can help companies manage the processes that lead to customer engagement, it’s important to remember that they’re only a tool and not an end goal. This means that a contact center manager’s job should be to help agents do their jobs better.

“The digital experience you provide should enhance the customer’s’ pleasure in doing business with you rather than overshadow it,” wrote the blogger. “The best possible customer experience is still all about human give and take, rather than about what technology can do.”

Questions contact center managers should be asking themselves include, “What roadblocks are customers hitting in their efforts to get a great customer experience?” “What can we do that will not only satisfy customers, but delight them?” “What can I do that will engage my workers to put customers first?” (If they’re focused only on their efficiency metrics, they’re not putting customers first.)

Delivering the same high quality experience across all channels is another important job of the contact center. If you’re doing great with the telephone channel but ignoring emails or social media posts, your success over the telephone doesn’t count for much.

“Whether your customers are interacting with your supply chain and delivery service or technical support, and whether the medium is email, mobile app or face-to-face interaction, your business needs to deliver consistent quality,” wrote the Centric Digital blogger. “Apply similar metrics and customer satisfaction tools to each channel through which you deliver an experience.”

Most contact centers today build their processes in-house and reach out to customers in ways that are convenient to the company. In 2016, the contact center manager’s job should be to start with the customer and work backwards to the core processes of the company. 

Edited by Alicia Young