From the outside in: creating the cross-channel experience

So how can CSPs improve the customer experience, maintain a competitive edge and increase revenue? By connecting retail, web and mobile as well as call-center channels and social networks to guarantee that customer interactions are carried out in a coordinated manner. Nurturing brand consistency over a range of channels is essential for operators who want to build lasting relationships with customers, avoid churn and grow their bottom line.

To do this, CSPs must embrace change and go beyond providing excellent service on just one channel, which for some is still the norm. In other words, don’t just push customers to your call center — respond to them within their chosen medium (e.g., in a retail store, on the company’s website or on a social network) and make sure that information is recorded for future reference. A seamless multichannel approach to sales, service creation and customer service helps build the customer base, generates trust among existing customers and fosters deeper bonds and customer loyalty.

Furthermore, to confirm they’re reaching their customers where it counts, CSPs need to examine the entire customer life cycle from his or her perspective, develop a deep understanding of the various touchpoints throughout that cycle and deliver a positive experience for each one — in the store, on Twitter and through the call center. Basically, CSPs should adopt an “outside in” approach to assess sales and customer processes and ensure cross-channel integration.

By taking these steps, CSPs can develop a consistent brand experience and strengthen overall customer satisfaction. It may sound expensive, but by making good use of information technology CSPs can deflect customer interactions from assisted channels to unassisted ones and lower costs while still serving customers at the touchpoints that matter most to them, which is better for the customer, the brand and the bottom line.

Connect the insides: integrating back-office channels

When working to upgrade technological platforms and improve customer service across multiple channels, CSPs must remember two things.

First, the customer experience is a journey. A person interacts with a CSP in many different ways over his or her customer life cycle, with different expectations at different stages. It’s not a one-off transaction, but rather a long-term relationship built on multiple, repeated transactions. In fact, many consumers now connect via three or more channels for a single transaction when dealing with a service provider; CSPs must learn to leverage the availability of those channels to ensure that interactions are integrated and provide a truly personal experience regardless of which channel(s) a customer chooses.

Second, CSPs must recognize that customer experience impacts their entire operation. Every business process, from product conception to sales transactions to post-sale billing and support, contains elements of customer interaction; the sum of these interactions constitutes the holistic customer experience, and can lead to increased revenue.

Once service providers acknowledge these two things, they’ll be able to identify the key touchpoints in both the customer life cycle and the business-process ecosystem that matter most. Next they’ll need to address the technology disconnect between the touchpoints and their own back-office channels, i.e., they’ll have to “connect their insides” by converging systems and platforms to make them more seamless and efficient.

Personalization is central to this integration. Any customer who’s begun the process of browsing for a new product or service can, and should, assume a degree of recognition from a CSP regarding his or her previous brand interactions, be they via the call center, an interactive voice response, a mobile device, or even a social network. Any CSP that overlooks personalization puts itself in jeopardy of being outperformed by the competition.