To understand how technology is changing consumer behaviour, you’ve got to get some good insight into your customers and understand what they want and what they need from you as an organisation.
Over the past few years, technology has undoubtedly had a major impact on the way consumers behave as well as what they expect from companies, posing some interesting challenges:
Immediacy - We want it now!
This is Amazon Prime territory. Nobody wants to wait – if you phone a call centre and there’s a wait, you’ll probably move to live chart or another channel instead.
Omnipresent:
People want you to be everywhere and connected at all times. It’s about providing a channel to customers, whether they’re out walking the dog, in the car or even on a plane.
Automated Services:
We’re already seeing a lot of things like IVR. But they’re going to get a lot better. In a very short time, we’ll be able to have service conversations with basically robots on the phone.
Rich Interactions:
Customers want to be able to have videos. They want to feel that the interaction is really addressing how they want to communicate.
Transparency:
Increasingly, customers want to know what are the service levels, what’s the customer satisfaction, what are your response rates. It’s one of the reasons we love TripAdvisor – we can instantly see what people think.
Proactive Service:
Understanding what the customer wants even before they know they want it and being proactive in providing that service.
Customer Co-Creation:
GiffGaff is a great example of this; they encourage customers to give customer service to other customers (basically C2C interactions). Then they reward customers who do this with lower phone bills.
Customer Learning:
The more you can educate your customers, the better the experience will be.
Customisation:
Tailoring interactions and experiences specifically for that customer.
What are you doing against this list? Be honest now...
At the end of the day, it’s about keeping things simple, it’s about keeping it easy and it’s about keeping it real-time for the groups of customers that you serve.
Top Tip: Don’t get so obsessed with the technology that you forget about the person. Customer service still has to be right. Service is still the killer app.
