Guest Blog: More Ways Mobile is Impacting the Customer Experience

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Matt Bowman writes about the disruptive role mobile technology is having on the customer experience. I find it fascinating how mobile technology is changing buyer behavior. – Shep Hyken

This past October, we reached the tipping point where the number of people using Google search on their mobile devices has now surpassed those using Google search on a desktop or laptop computer. But what makes mobile technology so interesting is the impact we’re just starting to see across the customer experience spectrum on things like the interplay between communication channels, on consumer buying behaviors, and on customer service programs.

With an estimated 89% of companies preparing to compete on the basis of the customer experience by 2016, companies must understand the disruptive role mobile technology is having on the customer experience right now.

Interplay between communication channels.  Obviously, mobile technology encourages omnichannel communications by making it possible on one device to conveniently use chat, email, social media and voice while in the act of shopping or using a product or service.  Accenture research shows that when shopping, consumers now demand an integrated, seamless experience irrespective of channel.

While this is important to keep in mind, many organizations have not given enough attention to the design of a customer’s journey resulting in a disjointed, inconsistent path throughout the customer experience.  For example, many organizations are creating next generation websites to help facilitate a dialog and relationship only to force a potential customer to leave the website and call a contact center.

Changes to the consumer buying behaviors.  Thanks to mobile technology, 31% of Millennials will not make a purchase without first reading a product review blog.   For a much higher percentage of consumers, the availability of inventory information and digital coupons play a key role as to whether they will even enter a store.

As a result, retailers are starting to use GPS tracking ability to recognize when the consumer is in, or near, a store and to send them well-timed alerts, coupons, offers and so forth. Facebook makes it very simple to target mobile Facebook users with offers based on their profile AND being close to a store.

Impact on customer service programs. An often-overlooked impact of mobile technology is the effect it is having on one of the key elements of the customer experience – contact centers.  Get this wrong and you will negatively impact your sales, word of mouth marketing, share of wallet, and customer retention.

When connecting with a brand, many users of mobile devices tend to start by using a mobile app, Chat or Click to Chat.  However, if that doesn’t produce a quick and satisfactory response, they then call the brand – many times without terminating the chat session.

As a result, this single customer has now engaged two contact center agents at twice the cost for the brand.  And all too often those two agents have no way of knowing both are simultaneously talking with the same person on different channels.  To make matters worse, those disparate channels often have disparate data silos that results in the customer needing to enter their information a second time.  As a result, the second agent knows nothing of the concurrent interaction, the consumer is frustrated, and it is a very inefficient exchange for the contact center.

Even for the vast majority of people who are not simultaneously using multiple channels, agents still don’t know who they are and must go through the time-consuming process of collecting account number and other information just to have an intelligent conversation. These practices are killing your customer experience in a time when most organizations are using the customer experience as a competitive advantage.   As such, here are five considerations brands need to keep in mind as they develop their customer experience strategy for 2016:

Create the consistency your customers need between channels of communication.  In some cases, this can be achieved by providing agents handling non-voice channels with access to the same information as you do your voice agents.
Upgrade your technology.  The technology already exists to allow an agent to know when another agent is already engaged with any given customer, regardless of what communication channel they might be using.  This will help you avoid cost redundancies.
Integrate your data systems to give your agents a 360-degree view of the customer, regardless of which channels they manage.  For example, information gathered in a chat session should be available to a voice agent.  If a customer started their interaction using social media or chat, the information gathered during that exchange should be available to voice agents.
Don’t make your customers enter their information twice:  For those customers who chose the voice channel, select an IVR technology that automatically passes information gathered on the IVR to the agent.
Use mobile apps to bypass information sharing altogether.  While there are many mobile apps floating around, most are designed only for self-service and lack the ability to contact customer care directly with a push of a button while passing the customer’s information onto the agent.

Think about it – what impact would it have on your customer’s experience if they were greeted immediately with “Hello Mr. Bowman, how may I be of service today?” instead of “May I have your account number please?”

Matthew Bowman, MBA is a global marketing and CX executive currently heading Teleperformance’s $2.1 billion worldwide omnichannel demand generation program.  Mr. Bowman has been written about in BusinessWeek Magazine and Utah Business Magazine and is a recipient of the SAMY Award, listing him among the top 20 marketing and sales executives.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com. Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article:

Crucial For Businesses To Understand: Customers Are In Control

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