A five-point plan to becoming a CX frontrunner

Most businesses are aware of the importance of customer experience (CX) and its correlation with customer loyalty and growth.

There’s also a growing recognition of what good CX looks like. This includes giving customers personalized and enjoyable experiences on channels they like to use, and generally ensuring they can find things out and get stuff done swiftly and simply.

So how does a business go about becoming a CX frontrunner? This post offers a five-step plan.

Picking a single cloud communications provider to handle all types of interaction eliminates a lot of CX complexities. You’ll sidestep the challenge of maintaining and upgrading different systems, and you’ll find tracking interactions across channels so much easier. You’ll also have one team to turn to for technical services, support and consultancy. 

Businesses that already have their own engagement solutions in place might choose to simply add more channels to their workflows via a cloud communication provider’s APIs. Others may opt to put in place more fully-fledged communication solutions, such as a customer engagement solution and a cloud contact center. 

No matter which engagement technology strategy you put in place, data insights need to be at its center to deliver great CX.

The best way to unlock the power of data is to connect all the touchpoints along your customer journey. These might include your website, CRM, payment system, app, loyalty card – in short, anywhere people interact with your business, online or offline.

When you understand consumers’ behavior and preferences, it’s much easier to pinpoint precise moments and places along their journey where you can drive better outcomes, whether that be higher engagement or better conversion rates.

You might use customer data to plan marketing campaigns or deliver special offers to land where people are already looking for your products or services. Or your contact center agents might use customer journey insights to deliver service that exceeds expectations.

However you choose to action it, unified data pulled from a central source is the key to unlocking better experiences. 

In 2022, enabling your customers to reach you on the channels they like to use is becoming a CX essential. Even if you’re not doing it, your competitors will be. 

Maybe you’re already using SMS and email, and considering adding other messaging channels like MMS, RCS, Apple Business Chat or Google Business Messages to the mix. Then there’s the various chat apps that are popular in different geographies to consider – such as Messenger for the US market, WhatsApp for much of Europe, or Viber in several eastern European countries.

By using one communication platform for all of your interactions, it’s easier than you might think to get going with an omnichannel strategy. The key is to take it step by step. 

Before adding anything, make sure you’re pulling data for all your interactions from a central source. Then, figure out which channels are suitable for your particular interaction needs, choosing a few simple use cases to start with.

You don’t need to add lots of channels at once. Start with just one or two and monitor the engagement benefits. The essence of omnichannel is to use data to integrate the right channels at the right time along your customer engagement lifecycle.

Suprisingly, businesses only started actively encouraging people to contact them recently. Think about it, how often have you wanted to find out more about a product or service, spent far too long searching for a buried phone number or email address to use, then received nothing more enlightening in return than an impersonal default response? Hardly a route to exceptional CX.

Being there for customers 24/7 is a great way to build trust and advocacy, and it needn’t break budgets. Rather than depending entirely on costly human-staffed contact centers, why not put chatbots to work alongside your live agents?

When consumers are using a myriad of channels to reach your business, it becomes harder to offer them the consistent support they deserve. The answer to your CX conundrum is automation – and this is where chatbots come into their own.

Businesses can now deploy AI chatbots across the full gamut of chat apps, and they’re smarter and easier to build than ever before (no coding required). Wave goodbye to delivering substandard service, and start supporting customers to contact you on their terms. They’ll thank you with invaluable lifetime loyalty.

The post-pandemic move to permanent hybrid working has nudged many businesses towards a much-needed technology overhaul. More than ever, enterprise software needs to equip teams with the tools they need to service customers from anywhere.

To provide a seamless experience, agents need both real-time and historical interaction data across every channel customers use, preferably accessed from a single interface. They also need the tools to automate routine tasks and quickly route more complex queries to live agents for a satisfying resolution.

Cloud communication platforms are key to supporting contact center teams to consistently raise the bar in all the above ways.