Are engagement frustrations now testing customer loyalty?

Patience is wearing thin for businesses who still use Covid as an excuse for a poor customer service when others are leaping ahead with AI solutions.  

Customer’s Impressions of an organisation are determined at the point of need: 

- When you purchase a product or service

- Monitor Ongoing performance 

- Change or update a feature or information 

- Terminate the product or service 

These points of engagement are vital interactions creating a lasting impression of a business and can be face to face, online or app journey, post, email, call with an agent or with an intermediary or reseller. As businesses introduce and direct customers to more digital channels, they need to join up all possible points of customer engagement to ensure they are consistent and efficient and to avoid frustrations such as:  - A wonderfully designed online journey that results in a call with an agent who does not recognise or understand the steps the customer has taken - Queuing to speak to an agent where automated voice guidance takes you through an identification process and on to the wrong department - asking the customer to call back or join another queue - Online experiences that provide lots of content but are not intuitive in getting you the right information in a way you understand - Information and processes that are inconsistent and do not direct you to the most efficient experience for your enquiry

The value customers put on their own time should be respected and their need for efficient customer engagement recognised. The past 6 months has shone a very bright light on our engagement with the businesses we use, as contact centre availability has been restricted customers have been sympathetic and endeavoured to perform tasks online where they can. Businesses that have invested in understanding their customers and their experience at a point of need have reacted well and there has been some great innovation to deploy at pace AI and automation through low code solutions. Below are use cases I have delivered recently that have reduced contact centre demand and customer frustration and there are many more: ·      Understanding customer login needs through AI and presenting them with video and imagery that guides them to the best experience- reduced contact by 25% ·      Increase in death notifications through Covid now being captured by a dynamic AI interface that prompts for all the right information and documents – removed 45 days of processing time and helps customers access funds more quickly at a time of distress. ·      Using AI to identify customers who may be vulnerable or are getting frustrated with the online experience so they can be directed to a human as quickly as possible.   The value of customers being able to resolve their issue at the first point of contact is a benefit to us all – businesses, customers, contact agents and intermediaries.  Sympathies with business challenges in this period are starting to wear thin, suppliers have had 6 months to learn and innovate to provide new experiences without frustration. The impact for businesses that fail to move towards AI solutions will be a migration of their customers to more innovative suppliers that understand their customers and are willing to support them. The power of social media to join up opinion and recommendations makes it very easy to hear what trusted friends are using and transfer loyalties.  As customer finances tighten in the coming months acquiring new customers will be a challenge. Retaining the ones you have must be a priority and this can be quickly addressed by using AI as an inexpensive proof of concept to find the points of engagement customers find most frustrating and fix them.  Doing nothing and letting your customer base slowly leave can no longer be an option, acting now will ensure there is a business to take forward.