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 InMoment 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. InMoment 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.