In Conversation with Forrester and WNS

Q. As Customer Experience Management (CXM) is fast becoming a key differentiator, how can a business keep pace with changing customer expectations in today’s “digital world” in terms of personalized channel preferences, seamless cross-channel journeys and industry-aligned skilled talent?

VASUPRADHA

Let's break this down into two parts:

1. Channel preferences and cross-channel journeys – Most businesses struggle to take these from strategies to actions. Customers need choice but with built-in strategy. They need to be guided to the “right channels” at the “right time,” not be shown all available channels. Customers don’t need channels, they need resolution and to win, you want to build channels that are focused on resolution.

2. Industry-aligned skilled talent – The skill requirements also tend to be evolving much like customer preferences. The need here is to simplify the agent skill matrix and focus on building desired skillsets as opposed to generic ones for customer service or sales. Given automation has taken away or will take away most of the “simple” queries, agent skill development also needs to evolve to include higher attention to empathy, rapport and problem-solving.

   Given these requirements, the biggest win for digital CXM is pivoting to analytics, or rather insights. The ability to harness data – customer, channel and performance – to empower every customer and agent touchpoint will be the only sure way to succeed with digital.

JITENDER

Whether customers are buying life insurance, renewing a healthcare policy or applying for a bank loan, an integrated CX model enables proactive, contextual and intelligent conversations while significantly reducing the cost-to-serve for companies. In my recent blog, we have addressed this need for driving CX by integrating advanced analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and intelligent automation with an agile team. We believe balancing the below 4-pronged strategy will help businesses stay relevant in the “digital world”:

1. Omni-channel capabilities can enable the hyperpersonalization of experience to make CX seamless for the end customer.

2. Advanced cross-channel analytics and customer journey orchestration can provide deep insights into customer behavior, enabling companies to hone their digital strategies and engage more effectively with customers at the right time and on the preferred channel.

3. Effectively achieve a balance between the digital and human customer experience by incentivizing customers to use self-service automation options. At the same time, have a human backup ready (to answer complex queries) for all-digital self-service options (to answer simple to medium-complex queries).

4. Leverage agile, highly niche domain experts who are adept at managing conversations of high complexity and augmenting their skillsets with a higher order of cognitive skills for empathy and problem-solving.

WNS EXPIRIUS is precisely aimed at addressing the above.
It integrates human-assisted design and domain expertise with Artificial Intelligence-led conversational insights and consulting-led CX strategies to create a holistic digital experience. It also helps businesses manage volume fluctuations by integrating an on-demand gig workforce (Open Talent).