Author: Stuart Richards

In today’s connected world, managing a customer’s expectation and consistently creating positive experiences has proven to be a challenge for many organisations.

Part of the challenges in customer experience can be attributed to a variance in preferences across different industries and geographies. A recent study conducted by the UK Institute of Customer Service (UKCI) revealed that customer needs for specific types of services vary by industry, country, and channel.

Importance of understanding customer differences across sectors

In the modern business context, a healthy customer experience initiative is defined by a brand’s commitment to both satisfying customers and motivating strong loyalty. This in turn requires a firm to have a strong understanding of wide-ranging customer expectations.

Today, customers expect excellent experiences from their bank, insurance provider, mobile operator, and even their electricity supplier. However, priorities and expectations of what is considered excellent vary across industries.

For instance, staff competencies are considered particularly important in the banking and insurance industries while speed of resolving complaints, product reliability, and accessibility is a top priority in retail.

However, amidst these varying expectations, there is one shared ideology that prevails — there is no business without customers. Understanding customer expectations is therefore a prerequisite to delivering a superior service which can in turn create brand advocates and prolonged customer loyalty.

In fact, a study by Wunderman found that a staggering 79 percent of customers base their initial purchase intent on how efficiently a brand understands and cares about them. Suffice to say, understanding customer expectations is a crucial ingredient to the success or failure of a business.

Different customer expectations across countries

It is imperative that customer service representatives are aware of the diverse requirements in different countries and cultures. It is especially vital for companies that wish to expand their operations globally. Understanding disparities in customer priorities will invariably help companies identify strengths and opportunities for improvement and differentiation.

These priorities can vary from price, quality, and physical presence of a representative. For instance, customers in Japan have very high expectations of customer service and do not expect to pay for it. Accordingly, service providers in Japanese markets are expected to go out of their way to serve customers and solve problems.

If a customer seeks out phone support in Japan and is dissatisfied with the outcome, the company will more often than not send someone to help them out. This may not always be expected from companies in countries like the UK or US.

Furthermore, a 2014 Global Customer Service Barometer Report by American Express revealed that 78 percent of US customers rate being connected to someone who is knowledgeable as important, whilst only 65 percent of customers in the UK agreed with this. Moreover, a study conducted by New Voice Media found only 25 percent of Americans will hold while on the phone after 10 minutes, compared to 64 percent of Brits, for whom it is a regular occurrence.

Understanding wavering emotions

Existing UKCSI research notes considerable differences in how customers describe emotions associated with positive experiences. The research showed Danish customers, for example, predominantly using the verbatim “they had what I was looking for” while Spanish customers usually stated “I am satisfied with doing what I came to do.”

Respondents were further analysed to understand which emotions they associate with brands to which they feel the most loyal. Most customers across the countries analysed rated “satisfaction” as the most common emotion they associate with brand loyalty.

Around 20 percent of UK customers associated being safe and reassured with brand loyalty, while only 17 percent of US customers agreed with this. “Entertained” was the lowest-ranked emotion overall. However, 11 percent of Finnish customers chose this emotion — nearly twice as many as the nearest customer group from another region. Meanwhile, customers in France and Finland ranked ‘excited’ higher than in other countries.

The research also suggests customers across Europe share many of the same priorities but there are also a number of nuanced priorities by each country. Differences in the way customers score each priority out of ten was also noted. For example, there is less than an average differentiation in the range of priority scores in Poland, with less than one point difference between the highest rated priority (condition of delivered goods)  and the lowest (organisation contributes to the national economy).

Communicating using the right channels

Most companies today use multiple channels to interact with customers. This has been made easier with the rapid increase in technology and the advent of social media. However, customers across different industries and countries have varied preferences on how they wish to communicate with service professionals.

For instance, banking customers prefer a complete omni-channel experience with physical branches, online banking, mobile apps, text notifications, and phone calls. However, customer expectations with a healthcare company may not go beyond the ability to contact the company via phone and receive a text with reminders of upcoming appointments.

In the UK, UKCSI research revealed that website use is higher than the European average, although this is not uniformly the case across sectors. Website use is particularly high in telecommunications, media, insurance, and utilities, but is slightly less than average for banking, retail (food), and transport. In the Netherlands, “in person” is used less than the European average, although it is still the most popular channel for interacting with organisations.

Acknowledging preferred personalisation levels

In recent years, personalisation strategies have grown in importance and have seen a significant impact on levels of advocacy and loyalty customers have towards a brand. In fact, customers today do not just expect but demand tailored services that suit personal preferences.

They also want e-commerce sites and in-person sales associates to know who they are and offer relevant assistance. UKCSI’s recent survey recognised this fact, as “personalised support” emerged as a prime priority over purchase and advertising.

The report further indicated that customers in North America and the UK chose personalised support even more often than average at 54 percent and 53 percent, respectively. Moreover, 41 percent of customers in Spain value personalisation during the purchase process highest of all countries, a full six points above the average of 35 percent, while German customers weighted the different types of personalisation most equally.

It is imperative that companies today understand and respond to not just a customer’s buying habits and incomes, but also their emotions and states of mind. Acknowledging these subjective experiences and the role every function plays in shaping them is undoubtedly important in ensuring that customer satisfaction is more than just a slogan but also an attainable goal.

Walmart is the latest retailer testing facial recognition technology in an effort to create a better customer experience. Customer experience (CX) expert Brennan Wilkie says that facial recognition will be a key technology moving forward in the personalization of shopping.

“Installing facial recognition monitors in stores has the potential to grant retailers insight into the in-store customer experience,” Wilkie, the senior vice president of customer experience strategy at InMoment, told FierceRetail. “They can use it to determine, for example, whether customers are frustrated during self check-out and notify staff to respond with triage, pre-empting complaints and ultimately attrition.”

Retailers can then pair the facial expression data with customer demographics, loyalty metrics and other product purchase information, a brand can gain a deep understanding of the consumer.

“This intelligence could fuel action across the organization, from targeting demographics differently, to increasing access to self check-out, to deploying human talent at the specific points along the customer journey where they increase value,” he added.

However, Wilkie warns that Walmart and other retailers will need to be cautious as they test and implement these new tools in order to avoid crossing the line of customer privacy with this new tool. To address this, brands must be transparent about where, when and why they’re using this new technology, and of course, offer value in return for this privacy invasion.

There are several other challenges associated with using facial recognition. For example introducing new data when companies are already swimming in Big Data and struggling to derive value from it.

“Having a strong strategy for how to manage, access, analyze and action the information will is paramount,” Wilkie said. “Practically, there may be pushback from customers who are uncomfortable with the idea of their in-store actions being not only recorded by facial recognition monitors (often already done for security purposes), but observed and analyzed for business strategy reasons. If retailers can communicate the overall benefits of the technology as they roll it out, any negative feedback should be outweighed by the positive. This strategy has worked well with newly introduced in-store technology, such as self-checkout lines and chip readers, in the past.”

Another concern related to this infant technology is that there is the potential for the data to be misread. Therefore, the analytics software needs to be very sophisticated to be able to get results off of reading a customer’s expression.

The final challenge will be knowing when a retailer should implement new changes based on localized behaviors.

“Regionally, customer demographic preferences can differ. This should be considered as CX changes are implemented at scale as a result of learned insights from the technology,” he said.

So which retailers should be leading the way with facial recognition?

Wilkie recommends retailers with Millennials as their main demographic since study findings show that Millennials are most comfortable with the idea of sharing personal data with companies as a means to using their products or services. Additionally, retailers who are testing out the incorporation of robot assistance for processes such as self-checkout and self-price check are great candidates for using facial recognition.

“By better understanding a customer’s reactions at every point in their customer journey, retailers can assess the ideal balance of human and tech at each customer touchpoint. They may find that their demographic of customers prefers the traditional experience, unlike other retailers with more connected consumers as customers,” Wilkie said.

Using facial recognition technology for CX insights is still in its early stages. Advancements in software will add a new layer of understanding of the CX for retailers.

“Written feedback, voice feedback and body language will be the holy trinity to delivering a robust customer experience once facial recognition technology is mastered,” he added.

This post was written by James Bolle, VP Head of Client Services EMEA

There are many factors that go into making a customer’s overall experience a great one, but the impact of your employees might well be the biggest.

Employees are the face of your businesses and must play an important role in any CX programme. The widely accepted model “Value Profit Chain” states that if you have happy employees, you have happy customers.

However there are now many different variables that impact on this process. Customer experience will affect employee experience and vice versa. In order to understand your customers’ experiences you first need to understand your employees’ experiences.

This year’s EMEA Customer Experience Elevated conference (CXE17) highlighted the importance of employee engagement, and the huge part it plays in the CX journey. We welcomed CX experts from across the globe including Revolution Bars Group, and Tiffany & Co. Whilst each is a very different business, engaging employees was the unifying factor in all their presentations.

Employees are impacted every day by customers. They are the primary representatives of an organisation; they know what happens “behind the scenes” and can offer significant insights into what may be creating and impacting the customer experience. It is imperative companies listen to them and when they do so, they often find more specific and relevant insights to improve their business.

Revolution Bars Group told us at CXE17 that their core message is “to deliver an amazing customer experience every time.” InMoment worked with Revolution to help the business review the entire perspective of their customer experience and listen to multiple stakeholders, not just customers, to gain a much greater understanding of the overall customer journey. Revolution introduced InMoment’s Voice of Employee (VoE) programme alongside InMoment’s Active Listening to collect data from both employees and customers to develop a holistic understanding of the customer experience.

The data collected from employees as well as customers has meant Revolution has been able to make changes to its business and has seen marked improvements in its customer experience due to the direct correlation between the employee experience and customer experience.

Revolution’s use of VoE is a clear example of how tapping into employee feedback on the customer experience can have a direct impact on your business.

Employees provide brands with actionable, success-driving insights – they should be considered a key part of the CX mix.

Despite access to more data than ever before, brands still don’t fully understand what motivates customers.

Customer Experience (CX) is now an established framework that, if managed correctly, can drive fierce loyalty and establish an unbeatable competitive advantage when it comes to developing a deep understanding of the expectations and perceptions of customers.

Over the past year, our experts have noticed customers talking about their desire for personalisation in a much broader way. We found that while customers worldwide appreciate personalised experiences along all points of their journey, some countries prioritise one type over another.

This reinforces the importance that there isn’t a one-size-fits all approach to personalisation. Brands must delve into their customer data to fully understand their customers’ needs and expectations to ensure they are providing them with an accurate personalised service.

In our 2017 Global CX Trends report, we’ve dug deep to determine how consumers and brands prioritise different aspects of personalisation. A lot of brands around the world have used data to send targeted messaging to customers across a variety of platforms, but research has shown that consumers are looking for the next level of personalisation and if brands can get it right, they’ve got the golden ticket to satisfied, reassured and most importantly, loyal customers.

The Three-Types of Personalisation

The three key pillars of personalisation that have come out of the report are support, purchase, and advertising. Interestingly, customers in every country ranked personalised support as their first priority.

Personalised support can be defined as when customers reach out for help. No matter how a customer reaches out to a brand, they already know who that customer is and what they have purchased. In particular, consumers want service companies to know their history so they don’t have to retell the same story to each successive employee they encounter.

In North America and the United Kingdom, customers ranked personalised support higher than the average (45 percent) at 54 and 53 percent, respectively.  Personalisation of this nature will not only improve the overall user experience, but will result in the customer getting the information they need in a faster and more streamlined manner.

Following support personalisation, customers ranked purchase personalisation as a key contributing factor to brand loyalty. Customers expect brands to know them and their needs, as well as offer expertise in what they are selling and make helpful recommendations.

This isn’t just a simple case of upselling products at the point of purchase, but understanding the reasoning behind the product purchase and assessing what will aid the customer in their journey.

This is of particular interest to Spanish customers, who ranked purchase personalisation at 41 percdent, compared to the global average of 35 percent. That said, customers from across the globe want e-commerce sites and in-person sales associates to know who they are and offer the relevant assistance.

Companies who can get this right can expect to reap the rewards. Research suggests that if consumers enjoy personalised interactions, they are happy to purchase more when they feel those experiences provide real value.

Finally, advertising using personal marketing messages that include being addressed by name and offers relating to suitable products is probably the most recognised form of customer personalisation, but surprisingly it was voted the least important globally at just 20 percent.

Companies such as Channel 4 have taken advertising personalisation to a new level by personalising adverts with viewers’ names as they watch content through the broadcaster’s video-on-demand service. Channel 4 has described this service as ‘an immensely powerful marketing tool’, however in the UK, only 17 percent of people thought personal marketing messages were effective.

The Insights

The key insights from the report indicate that operation leaders tend to understand personalised experiences in the support and purchase departments as they fall within their areas of responsibility.

Marketers on the other hand often associate personalised experiences with well-targeted advertising. For consumers, it’s about the total journey. The well-targeted advert may drive the traffic to a brand and get customers thinking about a product, but if the support and knowledge from staff isn’t there to make consumers feel safe and reassured, the result can be detrimental.

With the majority of organisations now reporting marketing as the ‘owner’ of the customer experience, it’s particularly important for these leaders to understand and support personalisation in a much more comprehensive way.

The Guide to Getting Personalisation Right

• The heart of any company is its employees. To ensure they are giving your customers the best possible service, they need to be motivated and feel empowered. Make sure each individual has the skills and training they need to offer the best service possible. Encourage employees to share their experiences so they can learn from one another. As Benjamin Franklin once said: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
• Having the right people on the front lines with the right attitude sounds obvious but it can make an astounding difference to what customers think of your brand. All it takes is one disgruntled customer to have a conversation with one not-so-helpful employee and you’ve lost a customer for life. What’s more, news of bad customer service reaches more than twice as many ears as praise for a good customer experience*, so employees need to get it right every time.
• Gathering quality customer experience data can also make a massive difference to how brands communicate with their customers. If brands have the right software in place to capture feedback and insights along every point of a customer journey, then they’ll be well on the way to offering targeted personalised support which will enhance the overall user experience.