Dr. Ori Faran is the founder and CEO of Callvu.
Many other people date the birth of the customer web to around 1994. Soon, marketers saw “digital” as the key to transforming visitor relationships. It was intended to offer a magical, inexpensive way to deliver personalized reports and ongoing interactions and relationships.
Today, most people can’t imagine life without digital because we spend and manage so much of our lives on it. Email, messaging and entertainment, of course, but arguably even more importantly, as the primary way we interact with essential businesses and services. In my company’s recent survey of American banking customers, for example, we found that 81% of milennials do most or all of their banking via digital. For most people, a great customer service comes down to the quality of our digital experiences.
Most businesses get excited when a visitor prefers virtual interactions to real-life ones. But do consumers choose our virtual channels because they love them or even though they don’t like them?The U. S. Customer Satisfaction Indexreports that between late 2018 and mid-2022, U. S. visitor satisfaction increased by 2022. The U. S. economy fell almost every quarter. Although scores have since risen, satisfaction levels remain at their lowest point in 20 years.
Global visitor experience, or CX, spending is expected to reach $641 billion this year, up from more than $130 billion since 2019. However, despite all the cash invested, visitor satisfaction is nowhere near where we need it to be. Last year, 43% of consumers shouted or raised their voices against customer service staff, up from 35% in 2015. Why do so many corporations get it wrong? Here are my thoughts:
First, too many rely on those ubiquitous and annoying customer-satisfaction surveys. Consumers who deal with an even slightly friendly customer service person can feel like the company has put a gun to their head: “Give this person five stars, or they’ll be fired—and it’ll be your fault.”
While the service deserved 4 stars, or even three, conscious consumers still give it five. And if it doesn’t automatically come to the consumer’s mind, the worker will let them know, “If you don’t give me a smart rating, I probably wouldn’t get a commission,” and my kids probably wouldn’t eat, etc. Just as school principals pressure teachers at low-performing schools, too many corporations have pressured consumers to inflate their workers’ qualifications. The leaders arguably wouldn’t have planned to do so, and neither did the corporations. But those are the incentives they’ve put in place.
Second, many businesses still rely on replaced features when virtual channels fail with consumers. After offering consumers a horrendous virtual experience, corporations are having a hard time letting their valued consumers find their way through a complex, jargon-filled phone tree.
Most customers don’t actually need to talk with anyone, most of the time: 86% expect a self-service option. That fact can save a business a lot of money—if it’s willing to enable customers to easily serve themselves. At the moment, though, it seems very few companies are. But, they might say they are. I have seen some companies automate the most frequent customer requests—a good start—but leave open dozens of use cases where live human support remains the only way to get an answer. That’s a real missed opportunity.
Third, even companies that offer virtual features offer them through only one or two channels, such as a visitor portal or mobile app. But, in my experience, not many other people rely on a single channel.
So what does a company do? How can a company be sure it is putting the visitor first?
Three have the key:
This means examining the method of all the surveys you conduct, and more importantly, asking yourself if your company can incentivize visitor dishonesty. The “mystery shopper” technique can be more effective than chasing meager reaction rates with incessant surveys. At the very least, put an end to policies and processes that require five-star ratings, or this domestic dog will get them!
Give them as many channels as you can. Deliver easy-to-use portable experiences. Provide your agents with education and generation to improve outcomes – the faster your consumers get what they want, the more they’ll accept it as true next time.
Continue to innovate as your customers’ expectations change. Don’t wait for artificial intelligence to improve everything—focus on what you can improve right now. Clarify your goals with your dev team, and work with them to develop robust customer experiences. Keep asking, “If I were the customer, would this make sense to me? Would it be easy to navigate? Would I be able to get what I want quickly?”
Ask each and every member of your team to call the stop service or stop at your site as if they were potential stop agents, and pay one- or two-thirds to do the same.
It’s much easier and cheaper to keep existing customers than to win new ones. Making sure your existing customers are happy is the best investment you can make.
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