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The Customer

The service delivery team shall understand customers fully, their needs and expectations and reasons for encountering the organization.

The first step to delivering exceptional service by customer experience agents is understanding the customer, their needs, expectations as well as reasons for their encounter with the organization:

Customer understanding by customer experience agents should be built on thorough data collection methods which combine quantitative and qualitative insights using traditional (e.g., surveys, customer feedback, consultation) as well as modern (AI analytics, big data, social media activity) data collection approaches.

Customer insights should be documented and used in the process of customer segmentation so they can then be targeted based on a more comprehensive and realistic understanding and which will help cultivates empathy within frontline staff to enable a more tailored approach to service delivery. This kind of customer-centricity helps service users feel seen, heard, and supported, thereby cultivating a more positive perception of service encounters overall.

The CX Agent

The organization shall ensure that its customer-serving staff are best suited to understand and respond to customers’ needs and expectations and improve customers’ experience in a way that exceeds these expectations by offering training, motivation, as well as a rewarding and empowering work environment with abundant structured opportunities.

Exceptional CX cannot be achieved without a positive employee experience – a happy customer cannot be without a happy employee. It is critical that customer experience agents work in a rewarding and empowering environment that encourages their proactive and enthusiastic engagement with everyday job tasks.

An important step towards achieving an empowered workforce is by building their confidence in their ability to execute required job roles, which can be achieved through effective hiring practices and subsequent training programs that develop the competencies relevant to predefined service delivery and service recovery standards. CX Agents must also be kept well-informed and updated on the different demographic and behavioral characteristics of customer segments.

Once fully trained and informed, staff should be granted a high degree of autonomy in their preferred method of executing their job roles and meeting organizational aims. Entrusting employees with such freedoms within a healthy work environment that supports their psychological well-being helps build an enduring sense of intrinsic motivation and enthusiasm for CX’s strategic goals.

Employees should also be encouraged to voice their ideas and feedback to shape the CX strategies of the future. The benefits ensuring employees feel included and engaged in the CX transformation journey have clear benefits beyond the explicit recipients; empowering employees also means empowering the customers, the organization, and the nations at large.

The first step to delivering exceptional service by customer experience agents is understanding the customer, their needs, expectations as well as reasons for their encounter with the organization:

Customer understanding by customer experience agents should be built on thorough data collection methods which combine quantitative and qualitative insights using traditional (e.g., surveys, customer feedback, consultation) as well as modern (AI analytics, big data, social media activity) data collection approaches.

Customer insights should be documented and used in the process of customer segmentation so they can then be targeted based on a more comprehensive and realistic understanding and which will help cultivates empathy within frontline staff to enable a more tailored approach to service delivery. This kind of customer-centricity helps service users feel seen, heard, and supported, thereby cultivating a more positive perception of service encounters overall.

The Relationship

The organization shall be keen on consistently building a strong and engaging relationship with the customer whenever there is a service delivery or recovery encounter across all channels.

CX agents and customers should share a positive relationship across all kinds of interactions and channels. CX agents are responsible for building a connection with the customer, based on a deep empathetic understanding of their expressed and unexpressed needs, wants, personalities, and behaviors through the following:

Maintaining consistency in interactions, tailoring them to specific customer requirements and segments, communicating with customers through their preferred channel of choice, and promoting open dialogue for customers to express their comments and concerns. The above communication practices should always be updated and managed, which can be achieved by recording and studying interactions on a consistent basis.

Organizations should employ these insights to construct service recovery standards and mitigation plans for potential conflicts or instances where services are not completed at the first touch point of the customer encounter.

Relevant components of developed service delivery and recovery standards can then be communicated to customers through a customer charter to raise awareness about and build trust in the organization’s commitment to building positive relationships with customers.