Thought Leadership

In the year’s growing list of mergers and acquisitions, Amazon‘s purchase of Whole Foods has dominated media attention. However, while news outlets have been quick to hypothesize what the purchase means for both brick-and-mortar and online grocery, it’s worth stepping back to think through an overlooked part of the acquisition — employees.

As the ink dries on the early August deal, attention has mostly focused on customers. This comes as little surprise, with recent price cuts and other shopping/purchasing conveniences setting the stage for a new era of grocery. With consumers and high-ranking internal players on board, Amazon and Whole Foods must now address the impacts of this acquisition on employees.

As they do, businesses of all sizes can learn a thing or two in the process.

Lesson 1: Don’t choose between customers and employees.

Amazon and Whole Foods’ priorities could not be more distinct under the old model, with the former geared toward consumers and the latter toward employees. Whole Foods has historically treated its nearly 100,000 employees lavishly, while alienating some consumers with high prices. Amazon, on the other hand, has built its empire around generous shipping speeds and return policies amid a dangerously intense internal company culture.

On paper, Whole Foods’ employee-first mentality and Amazon’s customer-first motto couldn’t be a worse match. But, with each company an expert in its own right, Amazon and Whole Foods have a unique opportunity to blend their individual approaches and bring the best of each to the forefront. Customer and employee needs are not mutually exclusive, and neither should be the strategies and solutions used to listen to them.

Instead, by listening to both groups at once, stakeholders can pursue data-driven insights that go beyond traditional feedback metrics like turnover and attrition. The right technology can not only elevate employee voices, but actually unites customer and employee feedback for an improved and more reciprocal experience.

Lesson 2: Increase calls for unstructured feedback.

To put employees and customers in conversation, businesses must seek out feedback platforms committed to not only gathering, but analyzing unstructured data.

Popular CX metrics like Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are misleading and don’t adequately reveal what’s going on inside the heads of employees and customers. Conversely, unstructured data gives employees and customers the space to comment on bottom-line critical human factors like staff helpfulness, friendliness and attentiveness.

Consider the following scenario: After experiencing major difficulties checking out at Whole Foods, a customer leaves the store frustrated. At first glance, this situation may seem like a one-time technical issue, but in talking to both the customer and employee present for this exchange, we can see that the best solution is hardly black and white.

After reaching out to the customers (as Amazon might), stakeholders learn that our shopper’s frustrations started well before final purchase. Not only was the store out of her favorite cereal, but she also waited for 10 minutes in the checkout queue — points of friction a traditional satisfaction scale would have missed. Then, in talking to the employee (as Whole Foods might), it’s revealed that the cashiers routinely feel understaffed. This employee also explains that he has little experience working with the store’s new automatic chip readers.

Combined, these feedback sources point to a solution that’s best for everyone. The customer’s feedback alone may have resulted in simple IT updates or better shift management. But, adding the employee’s input pushes for a more full-scale training initiative around new services and technologies — creating an improved experience for both employees and shoppers.

Putting it all together

Micro-moments like these exist throughout all stages of the grocery or retail experience, and engaged employees are eager to share when given the chance. There’s a reason two-thirds of employees would leave a job due to feeling underappreciated. Employees simply want to be heard — but don’t take my word for it. Ask them.

The same goes for customers. Offered a platform, shoppers are incredibly willing to give voice to what’s working with their relationships with brands and what’s not (this is already happening daily on Twitter). With so many voices to hear, businesses can again turn to sophisticated feedback platforms. These solutions are equipped with advanced analytics that can handle engagement needs at scale.

And with the combined reach of Amazon and Whole Foods, scale will be a top concern for the companies moving forward. While Amazon has earned access to more consumers via Whole Foods’ existing pool of shoppers, it’s also now responsible for many new employees — employees who are used to top treatment, and having their voices heard. Fortunately, all signs point to Amazon being ready to listen.

Respect is one of the key building blocks in a strong relationship, be it a marriage, friendship or business. Without it, we feel undervalued and underappreciated. In a customer-brand context, this is an incredibly important concept. Customers increasingly have opportunities to express their concerns and attitudes with brands in a multitude of ways, from a traditional survey response to a simple tweet. How brands react to this changing landscape is critical. According to the Institute of Customer Service’s (ICS) European Customer Satisfaction Index, leaders, stakeholders and organisations that build and foster relationships based on respect will be best-placed to achieve sustained customer and employee engagement.

Respect is a vital part of the customer experience mix as customers want to feel valued by the brands they interact with. Simply put, a customer that is willing to trade money for goods or services deserves to be treated as more than just a number. Feeling undervalued creates a strong, emotional state that can have a marked effect on both short- and long-term spend, loyalty and advocacy.

Pearl-Plaza spoke to customers globally about how they feel following a negative experience and how this impacts on future buying prospects in our 2017 CX Trends Study. The responses clearly demonstrated the need for brands to get customer service right, with one French consumer saying “I have no desire to set foot in this store again” following a negative experience. At the end of the day, a customer has a simple expectation for the brand to deliver – be it having a product in stock or good quality food. When the brand gets that wrong, customers feel let down.

The customer-employee relationship is perhaps one of the most important relationships where respect must be a key focus. The ICS’s European Customer Satisfaction Index found that customers’ top priorities are mostly related to staff attitudes and behaviours, complaint handling and product reliability. Across eight different European countries, the three key customer priorities included:

• Staff doing what they say they will do
• Staff competence
• Staff understanding a customer issue

The reason why these issues are so important to customers boils down to respect – a customer trusts a brand to deliver goods or services and be knowledgeable about those goods and services. Furthermore, if a problem occurs, a customer trusts that the brand will fix it. These expectations are infinitely reasonable so when they aren’t met, customers lose respect for the brand which can lead to them never interacting with that brand again.

It is essential that brands create a culture of respect, both organisationally and in CX in particular. There are four key steps to achieving this:

• Empower conversation
• Let the customer tell you their story
• Let the customer know you have heard them
• Take action and fix the issue (and let customers know you’ve made a change)

Empower conversation

Customer feedback is a fantastic way to demonstrate to customers that brands respect them and their opinions, however many methods of obtaining that feedback can actually work against a positive relationship. For example, surveys are often far too long, and questions don’t apply to the customer’s actual experience. When a brand asks questions, they should be tailored to the extent possible using data from CRM systems and loyalty programmes – availability of technology makes bespoke surveys possible, and customers are beginning to expect that type of personalisation.

Furthermore, brands should use a variety of methods for listening to customers, so customers can provide feedback in a way that’s easy and preferable to them. In addition to traditional surveys, brands should consider using video feedback, harnessing social media and building feedback into mobile applications. Increasingly adept mobile-embedded voice assistants like Siri are making voice feedback viable and simple. The objective with feedback should be to empower authentic conversation with your customers instead of a one-way interrogation.

Letting the customer tell you their story

Surveys traditionally ask a customer to respond to a series of questions with a numerical rating scale, providing structured data which can be easily reviewed, compared and analysed. However, structured data only touches the surface of a customer’s experience. It doesn’t highlight how or why a customer felt a particular way or the details of a particular experience.

People have told stories each other since the beginning of time – storytelling is intrinsic to being human and it should be harnessed in CX. Giving customers the flexibility to talk freely about their experiences without the constraints of numbers and direct questions does two things. Firstly, it provides unstructured data which brands can analyse at a deeper level. Secondly, allowing customers to tell their story, on their own terms, demonstrates a respect for their attitudes and makes the customer feel valued.

Letting the customer know you have heard them

Giving customers the opportunity to freely and openly talk about their experiences is the first step to demonstrating respect. To truly show customers their value as a consumer, however, brands must respond to this feedback and let them know that their voice has been heard.

Firstly, brands must respond to customers in a personalised way. If a brand responds to every single piece of feedback with the exact same message, it gives the impression that the customer’s feedback isn’t truly appreciated. Automation, CRM tools and loyalty programmes make personal responses straightforward, meaning bespoke responses to feedback can be provided without impacting on a brands resources.

Additionally, transparency in response to customer complaints is essential. As previously discussed, when a customer has a bad experience, they associate negative feelings with that experience. To help turn a negative experience into a neutral, or even positive experience, brands must respond in a timely fashion – through automated prioritisation tools – and tell the customer what they will be doing to help resolve the issue. This demonstrates to customers that they are respected and valued.

Take action

Bringing customers full-circle in a journey of change is the ultimate demonstration of respect, helping foster trust and loyalty in the brand. According to the ICS, trust increases in parallel with increasing customer satisfaction levels. Much of this is due to brands making business changes on the back of customer feedback. Primark changed their staff uniforms in the past year from black shirts to blue following customer feedback that staff were difficult to find. The New York Bagel company also made the big change of ceasing all pre-slicing of their bagels after public outrage of the reduced quality in bagels when pre-sliced. Their Facebook post letting customers know they’re taking on board all feedback garnered many emotionally-charged responses to the sliced bagel debate. Whilst these are small steps in improving the customer experience, the message it communicates is significant: customers are valued and that their views are respected and listened to.

It is no surprise that brands that listen to feedback and make changes as a result do better in customer service indices. Respect, trust and loyalty are all interlinked – demonstrating to customers that they are respected will lead to greater trust in the brand and will foster brand loyalty. This will result in stronger customer satisfaction scores and an altogether better customer experience. In the UK for example, companies that rank higher on the UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) rank higher for trust with the UK average being at 78.2 out of 100 for UKCSI and 7.7 for trust in July 2017.

Get respect right, and stronger CX scores and improved business performance will follow.

Telecommunications companies (aka “telecoms”) have the most fickle customer relationships of any industry. Fair or not, telecommunications companies are the ones that consumers can’t live with—and most definitely can’t live without.

Consumer ire toward telecoms can largely be attributed to unaligned industry expectations. Today’s consumer holds telecoms to the same standard as other industries, which have much simpler business and delivery models. As a result, other industries such as retail and food service have fewer variables preventing them from providing positive customer experiences.

To gain a better understanding of where the telecom industry stands in terms of customer experience (CX), Pearl-Plaza’s team of data scientists conducted a study of 11,000+ consumers regarding their experiences with telecom providers.  

Here are three major findings from our Customer Experience in the Telecom Industry report:

1. That one-year mark is critical.

As with any consumer/brand connection, there are key benchmarks that make—or break—the relationship. For telecoms, that benchmark is the one-year anniversary when consumers typically recollect their experiences with your brand throughout the year and determine whether or not your organization has done enough to earn brand loyalty.

According to our study, “Satisfaction decreases universally for the first time at the one-year mark, no matter the line of service. The same pattern occurs with a customer’s likelihood to recommend.”

2. Customers are harder to impress the second time around.

There are many reasons customers might switch internet, TV, or mobile phone providers. Whether it was slow internet speed or rude support staff, each poor experience of a switching customer puts pressure on telecoms to provide a comparably better experience. And one thing is clear across all service lines: New customers who switch from other providers bring an expectation of a better experience.

However, our study finds that those customer don’t always find greener grass on the other side of the provider fence.  

3. People still like people.

According to the study, “With the exception of landlines, customers across all service lines who’d had a personal interaction with a brand representative reported higher satisfaction levels than those who had not.”

Like most industries, staff engagement is absolutely key in a provider’s ability to positively impact customers. And while chatbots and other automated technologies are a hot topic right now, those solutions should be implemented in very specific scenarios, and always in balance.

Telecom providers who focus attention and resources on empowering humans to resolve customer concerns will fix an obvious but prevalent problem in the overall engagement and satisfaction of their customers.

Customers expect consistency. If these expectations aren’t met, a hostile relationship can occur between a customer and brand. Meeting expectations consistently, across all platforms and channels is, therefore, key to driving trust and loyalty with customers.

Understanding Expectations

Pearl-Plaza’s 2017 CX Trends Report highlights that brand and customer perceptions are beginning to align more closely in some areas, such as personalisation and feedback responses. However, it also reveals some significant disconnects. One such disconnect is that brands do not fully understand customer expectations, or the positive and negative emotions that can arise from meeting, or breaking, those expectations.

Our Trends Report shows that satisfaction tops the list of emotions customers associate with brands with which they feel most loyal. At the end of the day, customers aren’t asking for much – they want the brand’s promise to be delivered and, most importantly, they want to be satisfied.

Alignment

A company may have multiple platforms of communication with its customers. On a daily basis customers may interact with a company through different media channels, different devices and even through visiting brick and mortar locations. Whilst these channels are all different, customers conceive a company as a single entity. If they have a bad experience with one channel, this could impact their experience with the wider business. No matter how many channels a company has to communicate with its customers, if there is no alignment between these channels, the overall experience is diminished.

Before brands divert resources in an attempt to delight customers, they must master alignment of both promises and expectation. The key is in knowing what customers want from each brand touchpoint, using CX data, and ensuring the brand promise is being delivered accordingly.

In addition, with many companies looking to use customer experience as an important differentiator, getting every employee on the same page should be a top priority. Employee alignment is key in order for this to happen. Brands need to foster an environment where all employees are focussed on helping customers succeed if they are to create a consistent experience regardless of product, location, channel or platform.

Building trust with your customers

The ultimate goal of most companies is to build trust with customers (as trust can lead to loyalty). Trust, however, doesn’t just happen – it must be earned through a series of good experiences, over time.

Understanding customer expectations is just the starting point for most companies. Aligning the brand promise and messaging comes next. Then, and only then, can a company start to build customer trust.

Which list would your company rather make: Best Places to Work or Best Customer Experience?

The good news is, companies don’t have to choose—they can make both lists. They can satisfy their employees and customers, and come out on top in both realms. In fact, the relationship between employee and customer experiences can and should be reciprocal.

Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, after the company’s recent acquisition by Amazon, said Whole Foods focused on its employees at the “expense of our customers.” Whereas Amazon, year after year, ranks at or near the top of every evaluation of world-class customer experience, but hasn’t achieved that same level of recognition for its employee practices.

Working at Whole Foods is a pretty good gig. Employees receive many perks, from in-store discounts of up to 30 percent, affordable health insurance, and stock options, to massage therapy, yoga, and language classes. Employees have a voice (that’s actually heard) when it comes to their benefits packages, process improvements, and even new recipes.

Not to be mistaken, there’s nothing wrong—and a lot right—with treating your employees fairly with competitive wages, generous perks, and a genuinely caring work environment. But the company didn’t earn the nickname “Whole Paycheck” without good reason. Someone has to pay for all of those employee niceties. And over time, costly perks often lack the motivational aspect that companies seek from them, forcing leaders to focus on what really creates sustained employee engagement. And sometimes they’re simply uncertain where to turn.

A few months ago I wrote an article entitled, “What They Really Want: The Business Case for Elevating Employees’ Role in CX,” in which I discussed this exact topic. I acknowledge that companies are thinking further outside the box than ever to engage employees (e.g., company game rooms, always-full snack closets), but question whether these efforts are truly delivering the return on employee loyalty companies seek.

In the case of Whole Foods (and many other brands across the world) I would argue no. Did employee perks translate to positive experiences for customers? Not necessarily. And great customer experiences don’t always result in fulfilling employment, either. And at the end of the day, isn’t creating positive customer experiences that drive brand loyalty and high-value customer relationships what running a business is all about?

So how do you create this environment where employees are engaged, empowered, and motivated to deliver frictionless, individualized customer experiences? For the complete run down, read the aforementioned article, but in summary: ensure your employees know they are valued. Make them a part of the creation and evolution of the customer experiences your company delivers. Invite them to the conversation by asking for their feedback. Asking for the employee’s perspective on improving the brand’s delivery of customer experience—known as Voice of the Employee (VoE)—empowers employees to take ownership of CX outcomes. If employees are not bought in, initiatives meant to improve the customer experience could actually have the opposite effect.

Making data-driven decisions requires listening to your customers and your employees, and going deeper than traditional metrics. On the employee side, gauging your employee experience based on turnover and attrition can be misleading for a number of reasons (e.g., a dissatisfied employee who sticks around or an engaged employee who leaves to return to school). When measuring CX, metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Overall Satisfaction (OSAT) can be misleading as well—they miss the nuances of the customer experience. Dig deeper into the unstructured feedback on human factors: staff helpfulness, friendliness, and attentiveness. Engaged employees with high levels of morale are more likely to shine in these areas, creating a reciprocal relationship that leads to an enviable cycle of positive customer and employee experiences.

As Amazon ventures into more brick-and-mortar endeavors, will its customer-first model continue working? Retail is a completely different animal than e-commerce—you must have your best, brightest, and strongest brand advocates at the front line. They are the representation and personification of your company—much different and more personal than a customer experience over the phone, email, or chat. For this reason, keeping staff engaged through an open and inclusive culture is paramount.

While Whole Foods may be a cautionary tale to other employee-first brands, it should not abandon the foundation that made it a success for so many years. If it’s going to scale back its employee-centricity, it needs to do so methodically and backed by data to ensure it invests in what creates highly engaged employees. I believe what it will ultimately learn is that making employees a part of customer experience creation is what truly keeps them happy and productive—not the perks.

What happens when you merge the world’s most customer-centric brand with one of the most employee-centric? Only time will tell, but the result could be revolutionary for both these brands, as well as the people who work for and buy from them.

In its recent report, How to Build the Right CX Strategy, Forrester declares, “Customers are your best source for identifying unmet expectations and needs.”

It’s clear that measuring customer experience (CX) through customer feedback has become a key focus as organisations aim to gain a competitive advantage. However, as more organisations request feedback from consumers one of the growing challenges I hear is that businesses are worried about “survey fatigue” and saturation. In our experience, programmes that evolve in line with business requirements are able to grow both responses and actionable insights.

Customers give feedback for four principal reasons:

• They have something positive to share and want to feel connected to your brand.
• They have something negative to share and want you to act on it!
• You incentivise them.
• They are asked.

If they are connected to your brand, you provide memorable experiences, and you ask for it, there is no reason why “survey fatigue” should set in, as long as you use the right technology to connect with customers and ask the right questions in a timely and engaging way.

The bigger threat to CX programmes is how you ask for feedback, and the impact this has on the customer experience and customers’ perception of your brand. How you ask for feedback has a big impact on the quality and amount of feedback gained.

I was recently asked for feedback following a call I had with my TV and broadband provider. The call lasted around three minutes, during which I successfully negotiated a price reduction. I was happy. However, the agent then insisted I wait in silence for another minute whilst he typed up the notes before he finally asked me if I would stay on the line to complete a survey. His pitch for getting some feedback went something like this: “Would you mind completing a survey on how I helped today? I’m pretty sure we only do this so my boss can check up on me.” Whilst this comment might have been made in jest there was probably some level of truth in it. It did nothing but annoy me and ruined what had been a good call.

I have also had a number of experiences in retail shops and restaurants where I’ve been asked to give feedback with the comment, “Please tick ‘Very Satisfied’ or it doesn’t count and I don’t get a bonus.”

What do these messages say about your brand?

In the drive to collect feedback, it appears many organisations are forgetting one important factor: The way you ask for feedback has an impact on the customer experience. When done poorly, this can be one of the biggest dangers to CX programmes.

At Pearl-Plaza, we have successfully enabled many brands to shift their collection methods from traditional paper and agent interactions into digital invites. Using eReceipts, emails, or automated telephone solutions can be very useful in not only achieving healthy response rates but also protecting the customer experience through a more focused effort.

Whatever your situation, it’s worth asking how much feedback you actually need. Are we putting too much pressure on our teams to collect lots of feedback for the sake of having more data?

Whilst more feedback can give you richer customer stories and comments, and thus insights, be aware of the number of responses you need to be statistically confident in the scores your programme is generating, and resist the urge to keep asking.

There is a cost to your brand if the wrong behaviors are adopted in the push for feedback.

A bonus culture around CX programmes is often what drives these bad behaviors. In my next article, I will focus on how to get the culture of transparency right to ensure your CX programme avoids some of these issues. This will focus on moving away from pushing feedback to pulling it in, and how some organisations have created a culture of welcoming “bad” feedback so they can correct their mistakes and improve.

As long as there are customers, there will always be issues, complaints, and disagreements.

In fact, nearly every morning’s news report brings another example of a self-proclaimed “customer-centric” company failing—and shockingly, sometimes injuring—its customers.

Let’s be honest: Pleasing every customer, every time—while an admirable goal—is simply not possible. But failing to meet customer expectations doesn’t have to be all bad. In fact, it’s an opportunity to not only redeem the customer relationship, but—when handled with skill—also significantly improve it. There’s another, nearly-untapped benefit: It’s a chance to empower employees to take greater ownership of the customer experience (CX) and increase their own engagement in the process.

Customer complaints typically end one of two ways: They’re either resolved satisfactorily…or they’re not. When resolved successfully, customers are turned into loyal brand advocates while employees receive an enhanced sense of self-efficacy, a more positive CX orientation, and experience higher levels of motivation, confidence, and morale. However, a lack of resolution can drive customer churn and cause emotional exhaustion, frustration, and disengagement for employees over time.

A few years ago, we were working with the contact center of a leading financial services company and quickly identified an increase in the number of customers calling to check on the arrival statuses of their new credit cards. In an attempt to quell customer concerns over potentially lost or stolen cards, the company’s service agents acted quickly to void the original cards and ship new cards—overnight—to anxious customers. They were handling the situation exactly how they had been trained.

Taking additional calls, issuing new cards, and utilizing expedited shipping were additional expenses for the company—and were ultimately not addressing the root of customer concerns. In fact, immediately shipping a new card perpetuated the perception that the original card had been lost or stolen, and customer satisfaction continued to lag.

Aside from salvaging individual customer relationships, there’s much more to be gained from customer complaints. The one-on-one interaction between an employee and a customer is a unique, individualized, and often emotionally charged experience. And it turns out employees have a lot to say about it. In fact, one Pearl-Plaza study found that 33% of employee engagement surveys contain feedback relating to an aspect of the customer experience. Frontline staff have a range of perspectives on the multitude of factors influencing the customer experience that individual departments or leaders simply cannot know. But collecting the intelligence that comes from this interaction—in a systematic, in-the-moment way—is rarely accomplished.

Back to the financial services company…Ultimately, it came down to trust. From the customer’s perspective: You sent me a new card, but what happened to my original? Why didn’t you do enough to protect my personal information and finances in the first place? However, in actuality, cards are very rarely lost or stolen in transit.

Using feedback collected from call center staff—both supervisors and agents—the company implemented new protocols to reinforce customer trust. It sent regular text and email tracking updates for cards. It retrained agents to place a special emphasis on the shipping window/anticipated delivery date of the original card and coached them to reiterate that timeframe to customers who called prior to the deadline. Not only did the company see a cumulative savings of approximately $3.5 million in a single year, but it increased customer satisfaction, trust—and employee moral.

How this particular organization handled these customer complaints said a lot about its culture. It listened to its customers and employees, empathized with the pain points of the customer experience, and worked together across the enterprise to take action. Most importantly, it promoted a culture where people felt empowered to speak up because they knew that the company had their backs.

How customer complaints are handled is the ultimate test of your company’s culture. It’s a microcosm of how your company thinks, feels, behaves, and adjusts. When opportunities present themselves, how do you respond? Are you reactive or proactive? What sorts of relationships do you have with your customers? Are you able to identify areas for improvement, notify key stakeholders, and take action? Do you have clear resolution practices that address specific complaints but surface broader insights? And most importantly, do your employees receive the training, support, and guidance they need to effectively solve customer concerns with genuine care?

By empowering your employees to have a voice in CX, and equipping them with the necessary tools to not only appease—but truly please—customers, everybody wins.

In my last article, I discussed how CX will ensure that brands are able to adapt to changing customer requirements in order to stay ahead of the competition. In part two of this article, I will cover why CX strategy cannot exist in a bubble and must continuously reflect the global environment, hopes, and innovative solutions that affect us all. 

Economic, Political, and Social Factors Will Disrupt

In the UK, we are facing a series of challenges that may easily disrupt the flow towards better, more consistent experiences for customers. Let’s ignore what Brexit may do in the long term to human resource. In the short term, we know how inflation—affecting both food and fuel—changes shopping habits.

Recent articles have suggested that rising petrol prices will make customers adapt more of a convenience approach as we reduce car journeys in order to cope. However, history suggests that it may again be the high street stores that most suffer. Towards the end of the last decade, in order to counter the rising trend away from out of town shopping, the Big Four supermarkets (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, and Morrisons) pushed out more money off coupons and price offers on fuel in their own forecourts. Customers were therefore compelled to take advantage of the cheaper fuel available there, and the convenience channel suffered. Customers also moved back to larger trolley shops, and the “all under one roof” grocery experience. The likes of Tesco and Asda saw their non-food category shares grow as a result.

With rising costs and reduced available cash forecasted in 2017, value for money will become more important as priorities are juggled. This should not be mistaken for a call for more price wars and risk a race to the bottom. Brands need to clearly set out their customer promise, making customers recognise that the brand cares about the experiences that they offer, and deliver against these expectations flawlessly.

There is a key role for CX to support in adapting to these times. When businesses struggle costs come under pressure, including the potential investment in customer experience solutions. It will be even more important to deliver clear ROI linked to their programmes, as well as setting out the longer-term strategic role to be realised. The brands that continue to invest and innovate will be the longer-term winners. CX sustains businesses.

Consumer Trends and the Demand to Take Responsibility

We began 2017 with a series of high profile stands against positions that many people felt uncomfortable. The movement, #DeleteUBER, showed the power that bad publicity could have on any business, with 200,000 customers deleting the app in the midst of the social noise generated around the first US travel ban. We subsequently saw different North American, but also internationally-focused brands, setting out their position and their values. VF Corp stated that they are a “company committed to inclusion”, where “diversity—among our people, our brands, and our consumers—is a source of competitive strength and organizational pride”. Levi’s reminded us all that Levi Strauss himself was an “immigrant”, and declared “empathy, originality, integrity, and courage are perhaps even more meaningful today than they were 163 years ago.”

Both brands were no doubt clear that being honest about what you stand for could be as important as what you do in the eyes of the customer. There are multiple ways in which a customer builds up an experience of a brand, and how you respond to external challenges is one of them. In a climate where the levels of trust are in such short supply, it pays to stand out for doing the right thing. Delivering great experiences, not just products, will count more in this new world.

Tackle 2017 with a Clear Purpose

In summary, trust needs to be gained, built, and retained by brands and CX can help pick up concerns quickly—and at a robust volume. Another clear role for the CX industry is to unearth the stories that show how worldviews are changing and allow businesses to act.

We know that to be successful brands need to focus on setting positive and long-term goals for their customer experience strategy. There need to be regular reminders of the progress being made against these objectives at a senior level to ensure focus and how the investment in the customer has delivered results that overshadow the investment involved.

CX is not only an operational solution, but should strategically support the brand purpose. An attitude of doing the right thing in order to build a sustainable, healthy, safe, and inclusive future should be considered a moral and commercial imperative for brands.

It is likely that you already know that customer experience (CX) is important. CX has evolved rapidly in the past few years to become an established part of the way that businesses plan and implement change to achieve their organizational and financial objectives.

Where CX was once essentially a worthy and modern alternative to measuring internal standards through mystery shoppers, improving customer experience is now a strategic and commercial imperative across most leading businesses. This is true across nearly all sectors, channels, and industries. CX now has a readily recognised purpose.

The CX industry cannot afford to stand still. CX leaders need to continually push the boundaries of CX further to ensure its long-term relevance. These messages, ideas, and solutions need to be delivered in the context of the changing realities of our age; including technological, economical, and even political shifts.

In the next two articles, I will break down how to keep your brand relevant in the ever-changing world of CX into two parts:

• Part One: Adapting to Changing Customer Requirements to Stay Ahead of the Competition
• Part Two: Building a CX Strategy to Reflect Global Trends

Omnichannel Is Changing the Way We Shop

Year-on-year footfall on the high street is falling, with shoppers’ visits to retail stores declining every year. This trend is down to the increased convenience and improvement in the experiences delivered through digital. There are other economic and social factors behind this fall in numbers that we need to bear in mind.

In the past year we have seen digital retailers open up physical locations (e.g., Made.com, Missguided, and Amazon Go) as companies look to tap into the benefits of offering a full omnichannel experience. They recognise that in order to drive loyalty and sales they need to consider opening up a phygital (physical and digital) offering, as well as the obvious PR in doing something new. Evidence that customers who engage with more than one channel spend an average of 4% more on every shopping occasion in the store and 10% more online than single-channel customers has to be a key incentive to expand across channels. Pearl-Plaza also conducted a retail study recently, which reinforced this finding.

Omnichannel traffic is more typically weighted towards brands facilitating a greater proportion of online experiences for their customers, even if the purchase is ultimately made in a physical location. Webrooming (i.e., researching products online) especially amongst millennials is a behaviour that has challenged typical journey mapping tactics and entrenched department silos.

There are signs that the collaborative message is landing. We have recently seen Adidas launch an online tour of their flagship store in Stockholm, filmed with a 360-degree camera to create a virtual store experience (and aid the pre store process). Gap has gone further and created an augmented reality fitting room so that customers can “try clothes on” at home.

We can also recognise a blending process where investment is being made to bring the online benefits of ease and personalisation into stores, hotels, and restaurants. Our 2017 global CX Trends Report explored the types and importance of personalisation. From Inamo (London restaurant) where the whole ordering experience is delivered through an in-store tablet through to the trial of facial recognition technology in KFC China to predict customer orders; boundaries are being tested. In retail, we have seen a pursuit of “retailtainment” where stores are reworked as experiential spaces, with the concept of the Hackett Gin Bar in London especially capturing my own imagination (if not yet my spend).

In-store personalisation still remains a challenge even with the most optimised customer relationship management (CRM) systems in place. When one of the best examples of delivering a personal experience is Topshop’s pop-up store on Oxford Street selling Hello Kitty gear with the shopper’s name added on, you have to realise how far we still need to go to get anywhere near the level of sophistication found on the web. 

Technology Accelerates

The past 12 months have delivered fresh excitement in how technology is changing the ways we deliver, train, and share experiences. Amazon Echo stands out as the poster child for the opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI), and rightly has created a lot of buzz. Early adoption does, however, often come hand in hand with risk. For example, the largest supplier of broadband in the UK (BT) regularly struggles to connect to Echo has damaged the initial excitement of customers getting their hands on this new kit and has led to real frustration.

To appear innovative and allow funds to be redistributed to where it is most needed, AI is the way to go. The risk of not going there is probably greater than the investment required in taking the leap. Failure of USA Hearing Care businesses, who did not adopt a 3D approach to manufacturing, to survive has to be a clear warning that failure to quickly adapt to new technologies can be terminal.

Starbucks have been cited as a victim of their own success in tackling the need to provide joined up omnichannel experiences. Mobile pre-orders were reportedly causing stores to struggle, causing slower service—and unhappy customers. Transactions in the USA dropped due to the popularity of their order-and-pay app causing unforeseen strain on the process in store, allied to a move away from traditional malls.

Sometimes there may be the need to turn down the dial on technology. Mistakes will be made, and demand may at times outweigh the capability to cope. Issues will need to be resolved quickly, and we should expect the world to become more “artificial” over the next decade. CX can help us understand at what point technology is seen as an experience enabler ahead of more traditional touchpoints. In the meantime, CX offers a great measurement of a brand’s ability to maintain satisfaction levels whilst evaluating trials of new and innovative kits.

To differentiate themselves as great places to work, companies are thinking further outside the box than ever. While always-full snack closets, company game rooms, and offices that double as doggy day care are attractive perks, do they—and other employee engagement efforts—truly deliver the return on employee loyalty companies are looking for?

It’s no secret that engaged employees are more productive: less likely to spend a good portion of the day scrolling through their Facebook feed, or worse, job hunting on LinkedIn. They’re also much more likely to provide a better experience to your customers, and this less/more combination both saves and makes your business more money. But what leads to the type of sustained engagement that maps to positive bottom-line outcomes? Is it competitive pay, creative benefits, and room for professional growth? The opportunity for a positive work/life balance? Being equipped with the tools needed to do the job effectively?

Of course, all these factors matter immensely in the employee engagement formula. But years of research and working with some of the world’s leading brands has led me to a surefire way to ensure your employees deliver for you and, in turn, your customers: make sure they know they are valued.  

Notice I didn’t say make them feel valued.

Think about your friends and family. How do you know they value you? In my experience, it comes from trust, respect, and being asked for my input or opinion on important issues. And while the employer/employee relationship is different in many ways, the general idea is the same: If you want your employees to know they are valued, you have to actually demonstrate—consistently—that you value them. And a good place to start is asking for their honest ideas on how to deliver a better customer experience (as well as what’s preventing them from doing so).

Customer experience is more than a soup de jour. It’s a data-backed way to outpace your competitors. The employee’s perspective on improving the brand’s delivery of customer experience—known as Voice of the Employee (VoE)—empowers employees to take ownership of CX outcomes. And when you ask employees for their advice on improving CX—at established touchpoints and intervals, through ad hoc invites and “always-open” portals—and then act on that advice, they know they’re trusted, respected, and valued. They know this because you have made them part of the solution.

While the traditional mentality focused on creating the right working environment for employees, this new model takes a collaborative approach to problem solving and innovation, asking “What can we do together…and how?” It moves away from asking employees if they feel valued to ensuring value is manifest through action. It’s about getting to a point where you don’t have to ask—because you know. It’s not just one-time feedback; it’s the beginning of an ongoing conversation.

With technology, what was once a complicated, siloed, and often ineffective web of processes can now be streamlined and expedited. Sophisticated listening tools allow companies to systematically collect and run complex analyses on both customer and employee feedback, surfacing correlations and trends, and identifying both failures and successes. Tech can even automate some tasks for employees: prioritizing cases, routing customers to the places and people where they can get the right answers, and serving up content personalized to their preferences. Automated systems can also arm your front line with in-the-moment intelligence, empowering them to have the most effective interactions possible. And with processes like machine learning and artificial intelligence built into some of the more innovative solutions, these systems get smarter and even more effective over time. In essence, technology is a value-building tool that empowers employees to be your greatest CX advocates.

The result: Employees are providing more value to your customers and your brand, and they are more successful in their roles. In other words, you are helping them be—not just feel—more valuable.

While a number of aspects factor into employee engagement, VoE goes beyond salary, benefits, and foosball tables. It gives your employees a permanent seat at the decision-making table. By making employees part of the solution, companies are rewarded with not only a passionate, empowered workforce, but also new ideas and insights even their customers can’t provide.