In our last blog we covered how personalizing your customer journeys is a highly profitable undertaking that produces more loyal customers who want to spend more with your business. We also learned that companies are often getting personalization wrong and it’s having the exact opposite effect, particularly among Gen Z buyers, who after just one impersonal experience are far less likely to make a purchase than previous generations and will even go so far as abandoning the brand all together.
In our latest webinar PJ Johnson, Chief Product Officer, at Kustomer joined our COO and Head of CX, Matt Dickson, along with our Founder and CEO, Dave Dyson, to layout a roadmap to help companies plot their path to personalization.
Tip # 1 - Start with your data
Unsurprisingly, the key to personalization is your customer’s data. The challenge is preparing that data for consumption across all your key systems both internal and external.
Often your systems have incomplete views of your customers where information about their orders lives in one system and information about your interactions with them lives in another system. You need to create a blended view of all customer activities, including any internal escalations, in one place that is referenceable by all systems.
You must also take advantage of all the unstructured data that lives in your systems. Much of the information you need to create better and more personalized customer journeys already exists but because it is unstructured most companies struggle with using it in meaningful ways.
AI based systems are allowing for a much richer understanding of this data but need to be deployed intelligently. By deploying generative AI that can summarize interactions or gauge sentiment across those interactions you will start to gain a better understanding of why your customers are interacting with you, where their frustrations lie, and when they are delighted with the service you provide.
This is where many companies go wrong while introducing personalization. They have an incomplete view of their customers in core systems which means they aren’t making the right recommendations and creating personalized journeys that don't make sense.
They also have an incomplete view of why and where their customers are interacting with them and don’t have the appropriate measures in place to gauge their customer’s satisfaction with the changes they are introducing to drive deeper personalization.
Tip # 2 - Focus on personalizing the journey itself with a clear goal of getting your customer to the right person at the right time.
One of the biggest sources of frustration for customers are journeys that start and end at the same place regardless of the customer or their previous interactions. They are faced with byzantine IVR systems with choices that aren’t relevant to them as a customer (for example, “press 1 if you need help with your TV service” when you only purchase internet through your local cable provider).
They are also being forced to start their journey at the same place every time. You need to build onramps in your journey that allow customers to “cut the line”. We often see this problem manifest itself when providing technical support. Customers are thrown into first level support that follows a predefined set of troubleshooting steps.
For customers who are repeat callers, that you have already established didn’t have their problem resolved by following these steps, you need to route them to an elevated level of support with technicians that possess deeper expertise in the area where they are experiencing issues.
It’s critical that when you create a “shortcut” for your customers that you have systems in place that summarize previous activity so that the employee handling the issue can quickly and cleanly understand what steps have already been taken.
This presents another great use case for generative AI. It can create a succinct, yet complete, overview of previous customer activity along with any internal steps taken to resolve the issue so that the employee working with the customer today has the benefit of understanding what has already occurred.
Getting this right can greatly increase first contact resolution. Forrester's annual Customer Experience Benchmark Surveys results are in, and "Did the company resolve all my problems on the first contact?" was cited as one of the most influential drivers in a customer's perception of customer experience (CX) quality. If you want to learn more about increasing first contact resolution, you can read some other tips in Matt Dickson’s, our Head of CX, Forbes Technology Council post.
Tip # 3 - Allow customers to choose their own adventure
An Amazon survey found 84% of respondents are more likely to spend more with brands that allow them to choose their preferred channel. What we are finding though is companies often force customers into a given channel by use case.
Want to modify your order? You need to call an agent. Want to track your order? Use our automated system.
Today’s consumers expect to be able to interact with you in a manner that is most convenient for them 24/7/365. They are trying to get things done, while on the move, in a world that is giving them less and less time to address their personal needs.
They need to be able to reach you and get the support they need while driving home. This means they need to be able to talk to a live agent as automated systems often rely on taking your eyes off the road.
They also need to be able to interact with you while sitting on the couch, from the browser on their phone, while they are enjoying movie night with their family which is a perfect fit for automated systems that don’t rely on voice interaction.
Modern AI systems are largely eroding the people and technical limitations to providing this level of customization by enabling all agents to handle any issue and building actionability into other core systems from your automated customer interaction systems (chatbots, IVA, etc.).
Having a fully functional "choose your own adventure" system for consumers is becoming table stakes for today’s leading customer obsessed organizations.
Through a blend of better use of data, introduction of AI technologies, and a deeper understanding of customer satisfaction creating bespoke customer journeys are within the reach of any company big or small. Need help creating action plans and finding the right technology to turn these tips from theory into reality? We can help. Contact us here to get started on your path to personalization.