In CustomerThink, NGDATA’s CEO, Luc Burgelman, talks about the five keys to humanizing the digital customer experience.
The internet and social media have made customers more networked and connected than ever, and their influence is continuously increasing. When considering a purchase or vetting a new vendor choice, most consumers turn to that brand’s customers, particularly friends or family, to hear about the experience. If their best friend had a brand experience above and beyond the rest, that prospective customer will likely sign up themselves. Brands are now even calculating Net Promoter Scores (NPS) to gauge their customers’ loyalty and willingness to recommend their products and services, and using it as a KPI of their marketing and customer experience management programs.
On top of that, customers’ expectations have never been higher. The onus is now on brands to exceed those expectations, but most are still falling short- putting them at risk of experiencing major customer churn.
If you take a look at the banking industry, for example, a recent survey by my company NGDATA found that 41 percent of consumers cited bad customer service as the reason they would switch to a new bank, an increase of eight percentage points from 2016.
Further, recent Forrester Research studies around the Customer Experience Interest shows that making customers feel valued and respected is the number one factor leading to customer loyalty. In the digital world, a customer feeling valued means you remember their names, preferences, and purchase history, and you do not make them waste their time by providing irrelevant info, double data entry, etc. Instead, you go the extra mile and offer them something that is relevant and of value to them.
Consumers want to spend their money with companies that demonstrate that they understand and attend to each customer’s individual needs and truly value who they are. I like to call this “humanizing” the customer experience.
