If your organisation is providing customer service in the same way that you did a few years ago, you’re on the road to losing customers, staff and market share.

Successful businesses ensure that their customer engagement and employee satisfaction  strategies evolve and adapt to meet today’s needs.  When this happens, you increase customer and staff loyalty, and open more opportunities for business growth.

The importance of experience for your business

Take this common scenario:

A customer has a couple of questions about a product they’ve purchased from you, and starts off by checking out your website to try and find the answer. He sees the webchat and enters his question, but the chatbot can’t answer his questions effectively. So he goes to your Facebook page and leaves a message in Messenger, which is auto answered by a chatbot – who advised him to call Customer Service. After some time on hold, a friendly customer service agent takes the call, but isn’t able to give all the answers, due to their permission levels. So he is transferred to another department. More hold time follows and his frustration starts to mount. He has to start his story all over again with the new department and finally he gets the answers he’s seeking – after 38 minutes.

In this all too common situation, the customer can feel they are going round in circles trying to get a quick answer to their questions, and to speak to the right person. Even if they love your products or services, having an experience like this clouds their perception of your company as a whole.

The goal of offering multiple touchpoints is to cater for customer preferences and make it easier for them to do business with you, and of course to provide a great customer experience. But, often the opposite happens because the different touchpoints operate as silos.

And it’s not just the customer who’s frustrated – team members will be too. No-one wants to spend all day at work grappling with technology and providing inefficient service to disgruntled customers.

How have customer and employee needs changed?

Most customers want easy-to-navigate digital interactions which help them get answers or help quickly and efficiently.  No-one has the time or patience for convoluted systems and service delivery.

Customer Experience (CX) focuses on shaping the customer journey with a personalised experience which solves problems quickly. Customer feedback is used to gauge touchpoint interactions and satisfaction, and to learn where improvements need to be made.

Employees want fast and straightforward interaction with the systems and colleagues they depend on for doing their roles efficiently, and providing great service to customers.

Employee Experience (EX) refers to what it’s really like for your team members who are trying to deliver consistently good CX. A successful EX strategy and environment produces a less stressed and more driven workforce that works in a more efficient and productive way. Taking care of EX encourages commitment to the company’s vision and ethos, and improves job satisfaction and retention.

So what then is Total Experience?

Total Experience is the next step – where an organisation proactively implements strategies and systems that allow customers and employees to engage with the brand and company in a more holistic way.

Total Experience – TX – brings together all the X elements.

• UX – which relates to the user experience on your digital assets – particularly your website or app
• CX – the overall experience the customer has when trying to get customer service
• EX – how easy it is for your employees to operate your systems and deliver on your promises

Creating systems that collaborate for frictionless CX, UX and EX is at the heart of Total Experience.

Gartner’s report, Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022 predicts that TX-focused organisations will outperform others in CX and EX by 25%.

How to begin to incorporate TX?

Here’s a few ideas you can use to get started with building a wonderful TX for everyone who has anything to do with your business or organisation.

Take time to develop a multi-level plan

• Gather a complete and honest picture of your business by investigating and documenting the current experiences at all levels.
• Form a multidisciplinary team whose role is to create a strategy focussing on goal setting and collaboration opportunities.

Invest in the right technology

• IT is a driving force of TX, but investing in the right technology is vital. Identify platforms that amalgamate the digital experience for customers and employees. Look for those that improve collaboration, visibility and recording systems to boost customer service.
• Focus on platforms that can manage changing customer expectations by offering omnichannel communications and omni departmental connections. Move away from a purely transactional approach and towards a holistic CX. This will allow you to create a consistent and engaging customer journey that reflects your brand and  company values.

Make good use of data to support strategies and decisions

• Use business insight information to identify channel trends and changes in key metrics.
• Run customer surveys to find out what they love and what they find frustrating about doing business with you.
• Hold employee discussions to identify technology issues and pinpoint silos that need to be connected to remove frustrations and provide empowerment.

Stay up to date with technologies and trends

Delivering better TX than anyone in your sector will give you the edge over your competitors and see you reap the highly prized rewards of increased customer loyalty and staff retention.

To do this, you need to be constantly aware and ready to act.

• Keep yourself informed of new trends and technologies that drive TX.
• Maintain flexibility and plan to adapt to the changing needs of customers and employees.

Embrace the future with TX and Premier Contact Point

Gartner’s report predicts that by 2026, 60% of large organisations will use Total Experience to improve CX and EX.

As technology continues to morph at the speed of light and using it continues to permeate every aspect of our daily lives, customer and employee expectations will also continue to grow and change.

TX is the  building block for adapting to the changes and for providing the best personalised and collaborative company experience into the future.

Premier Contact Point’s technology is helping many businesses and organisations to implement TX and enjoy the rewards it brings.

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Today’s customers use various devices as they move through their day. Mobile phones have dominated our daily lives, and many people communicate, browse and shop on their devices while on the go. A tablet might be someone’s device of choice once at home, but at work, they will likely access information from a computer.

As of September 2022, 91% of internet users accessed the internet via a mobile phone, 65.6% via a computer and 27.3% via a tablet. So, creating a consistent, positive customer experience (CX) across all touchpoints is essential for businesses that want to remain competitive. This is where device-agnostic CX comes into play.

In this blog, I’ll explore what device-agnostic CX is, why it’s essential to your strategy, and provide actionable steps to implement it.

What is device-agnostic CX?

Device-agnostic CX refers to creating a consistent and positive customer experience across all devices, whether desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. It means ensuring that customers can access your services seamlessly, regardless of their device.

Device-agnostic CX includes making websites and customer service interactions user-friendly to all device types. It also means creating content that people can view on any device. For example, if video content is a key part of your CX strategy, you must optimise your content for all screens.

Increased customer satisfaction is one of the most significant benefits of device-agnostic CX. When customers can access your website or engage with your brand seamlessly across all devices, they are more likely to have a positive experience. Customers who find your services unavailable or difficult to use across devices will be more inclined to choose competitors that have optimised their services for multiple devices.

Three key elements of device-agnostic CX

Device-agnostic CX covers many elements, but a few of the main ones include: 

A highly responsive website: When updating your website, ensure it adjusts and optimises based on the device, making it easy to use and navigate. Your website layout should adjust to fit the screen size and resolution of the device being used. Responsive design also ensures the website loads quickly and functions properly if someone has a weaker internet connection.

Accessible customer service: Your CX tools must function properly regardless of the device. For example, as more and more people use voice assistants to interact with brands and make purchases, it’s becoming increasingly important to ensure customer support accommodates these devices.

Optimise content for all devices: Ensure content, including videos, images, and text, are accessible on any device that customers choose to use. Leverage video formats compatible with all devices, and optimise images for fast loading on smartphones, which may have slower internet connections than a computer at times.

By implementing these key elements and following best practices, your business can provide positive and consistent CX across all devices, ultimately increasing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue.

How to create a device-agnostic CX strategy

Creating a device-agnostic CX strategy involves several steps to ensure you provide a consistent and positive experience for customers. When building your device-agnostic strategy, it is best practice to consider the following:

Know the devices your customers use: Leverage data to understand how your customers interact with your brand. How many people visit your site on mobile rather than a desktop computer? How many people are asking questions about your brand via a voice assistant? When you have the answers to questions like these, you can prioritise initiatives that make the most sense to your customers.

Conduct a CX audit: Conduct a thorough audit of all your CX touchpoints, including your website, customer service tools, and social media channels. Identify areas that need improvement; for example, you might find that the web chat function on your website is unreliable when accessed via a mobile device.

Optimise your website: Ensure your website is highly responsive and user-friendly across all devices. Leverage responsive web design techniques and optimise images and videos for mobile devices.

Test your CX tools: Test your customer service tools, such as chatbots and self-service portals, on various devices to ensure they are highly responsive and function properly. You might roll out new capabilities for specific devices and invite your customers to try them and provide feedback.

Use data to drive decisions: Use customer data and analytics to inform your CX strategy and make data-driven decisions — analyse customer feedback and behaviour to identify areas for improvement and make changes accordingly.

By following these steps, your business can create a device-agnostic CX strategy that meets customers’ needs across all devices. It is important to remember that accommodating different devices is an iterative process, and you will need to run through these steps again to ensure you continue delivering excellent CX.

Conclusion

To remain competitive, your business must provide a consistent and positive customer experience across all touchpoints. By delivering device-agnostic CX, your business can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty with a highly responsive website, customer service tools for all devices, and accessible content – to name a few. 

As technology evolves, customers will increasingly expect seamless and intuitive experiences across all touchpoints. By embracing device-agnostic CX, you will position your business to meet these expectations and stay ahead of the competition in the coming years.

Premier Contact Point can help you leverage device-agnostic CX

Customer service has become the differentiator that distinguishes you from your competitors. You need to drive strong connections with your customers across voice and digital channels to elevate CX, build your brand and grow your business.

With Contact Point, your customers can easily move through their channel of choice, including chatbots, instant messaging, email and voice. 

If exceptional customer service is important to your business, we can help you create meaningful and memorable experiences. Visit our Premier Contact Point for Business page for more on our platform.

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