The evolution of customer experience: How did it change?

How did we go from customer service to customer experience? The answer is simple. When technology and globalization became one.

Before the age of the Internet, smart phones, SMS, and social media, customers had limited options. Organizations had no reason to be customer-centric when the product was their key differentiator. However, the world has changed with technology and so have customer expectations and more importantly their buying options. Organization that want to thrive in the post dot com era must transform from a product-centric organization to customer-centric organization. This cliché has existed for many years but why do so many companies still fail? The cold hard truth is due to the lack of understanding their new customers.

Understanding your customer doesn’t just mean what do they want or like to buy? In today’s world, its about how they want to buy and why they want to buy. Customers today have endless options in the physical and virtual marketplace. This means those unique products you once offered can now be provided by anyone and anywhere.

To compete and to be successful in today’s world, organizations must reimagine not only how they sell products but also how they support those products in an omni-business fashion.

Take a laptop, for example . Now if a customer is experiencing an issue with their laptop, they may reach out to laptop manufacturer's support team first. Upon investigation of the issue, however, the support agent determines the customer’s issue is actually a Windows software issue, and therefore the customer needs to work with Microsoft’s support team to get their problem resolved. To the customer in this instance, their laptop is an all-inclusive, singular object… not a conglomeration of different companies owning different components. The concept of omni-business resonates here when the support agent is able to securely transfer the customer’s case, with the full context, to a Microsoft agent so that the customer may continue working toward a resolution without having to completely start over from scratch. I mean who doesn’t hate it when they get transferred to another agent and have to start ALL OVER!

We also need the ability to do this in an omni-channel way. Customers do not want to be bound to one channel to open and resolve their case. Sometimes issues can take longer than a single interaction to resolve, and in those instances, the customer has an expectation that they should be able to reach an agent through whichever channel they prefer or whichever channel is most convenient for them in a given moment. Customers are even willing to pay more if organizations have their perfect and expected method of communication available. Consumers today are truly all about the experience.

Finally, in this digital world, customers purposefully share their personal information with your company so whenever they reach out with a question your customer service agents should know exactly who they are, what they’ve purchased, and what their history with your company includes. This level of understanding from the agent’s side enables them to provide a more personalized engagement for the customer, resulting in a higher-caliber level of support. The sense of entitlement and importance is more relevant than ever due to their buying options.

Want to learn more? Join our webinar on February 27th to see our Contact Center Accelerator powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement.

Webinar: The Evolution of Customer Experience
Date: February 27, 2020
Time: 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST
Register: Click here

Join us for an Art of the Possible overview of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for CE (Customer Engagement) to see how you can transform your current and future systems from customer service systems to customer experience systems. Empower your agents to better service your customers with the ability to have multiple applications with one dashboard. Utilize the common data model to produce industry specific 360 views infused with Azure AI to produce more personalized and relative experience for your customers. Finally, allow your customer to engage with your organization during your on and off hours via their preferred and expected method of communication to immediate resolutions.