Has the corona pandemic caused a trend break – have we really started doing things differently in the customer contact business – or is that wishful thinking? Looking back on the past two years, one thing is clear, if it is up to Janneke Verbruggen. She co-wrote NTT Ltd's latest Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report (GCXBR).

“The contact center sector had to working with digitization. In addition, the interest in customer experience as a subject in the boardroom has demonstrably grown. Three-quarters of the organizations surveyed have designated someone on their board responsible for customer experience, and a slightly smaller proportion (71%) have a more or less crystallized CX strategy,” said Janneke Verbruggen, Senior Manager Consulting at NTT Ltd..

CX strategy goes hand in hand with growth

It is not clear whether this strategy has contributed to better services to consumers. But companies that have developed a clear CX strategy and see CX as a 'differentiator' have noted that they have experienced strong growth recently, says Verbruggen. That is special, because in the previous edition of the NTT Ltd. benchmark it was still found that companies were not able to complete the business case for CX investments. “It is indeed estimated that companies will determine afterwards that their investment has worked out well,” Verbruggen responds. [text continues after image below]

Automation is no guarantee for 'better'

In the research of NTT Ltd. 'the voice of the customer' is also involved. When asked, consumers indicate that they notice the impact of increased digitalisation. Although digital channels are gaining popularity, 67% of consumers (worldwide) still want to always have the option to get in direct contact with an employee. Just over half of the respondents indicate that digital channels 'fail' due to misunderstanding (44%). Only one in three is very satisfied with 'automated CX solutions'. Perhaps that's why Gartner positions an application as the chatbot at the nadir of the Hype Cycle?

Gap between perceptions

According to Verbruggen, there is still a gap between what the organization thinks the consumer wants and what the consumer really wants. This is most evident in the NPS on customer experience, where companies think that roughly one in three customers is a promoter, while that score is lower among customers.

The figures also show that consumers are significantly more positive about CX during the corona pandemic than in the pre-pandemic period. Companies that were able to deliver during the pandemic came under pressure, but so did companies that were unable to deliver. “Consumers are apparently positive about the speed with which companies have switched. Perhaps because of the corona pandemic, they also had a better understanding of, for example, somewhat longer waiting times, or, conversely, of the problem-solving capacity of service departments. I wouldn't be surprised if consumers become more critical about waiting times and other service problems in the near future, because there will soon be no more excuses like corona - and that we will see that trend reflected in the next study.”

“More than half of the WFH employees surveyed do not have all the tools available at home.”

Working from home and tools

The fact that many companies, including their contact centers, have been forced to switch to working from home does not mean that this has led to great success everywhere. The survey results show that one in four organizations has seen a decline in the productivity of home-based agents. In addition, it is of course interesting for the organizations involved to investigate to what extent there are differences between employees or teams, for example. As one of the possible explanations, Verbruggen puts forward that “more than half of the surveyed WFH employees in the home situation do not have all the tools available.”

CX automation??

Finally, a term that is used in the benchmark study: 'CX automation'. Shouldn't we avoid that term because customer experience – customer experience, an outcome – cannot be automated? Verbruggen: “True, but you can automate parts of processes that lead to or contribute to customer experience. In customer contact, we often tend to focus on automating simple conversations, but it would be better if we looked at the simple or routine parts of that customer interaction. Think of identifying the customer or logging the conversation.” Incidentally, automation is not a solution in itself: “Automation only makes sense if processes and underlying systems are in good order,” says Verbruggen. (Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

In the context of the latest edition of the Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report (GCXBR) from NTT Ltd. questions were asked of 1.359 professionals from 34 countries and 14 sectors. In addition, a Voice of the Customer survey was conducted with 1.402 respondents.

Customer Experience, Featured