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EXECUTIVE REPORT ON THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCEBy Brian Cantor

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One can define it using a myriad of vastly different parameters. One can devise and execute it using input from a set of staunchly different stakeholders. One can measure it using an array of dramatically different metrics. One can improve it using markedly different strategies and technologies.

At the end of the day, two things are true.

The customer experience is experienced by customers.

The customer experience is created by businesses.

That disconnect of agency is inherently unavoidable. No matter how philosophically “customer-centric” the organization’s decision maker, there is no way to change the fact that the decision maker is imposing a business decision on customers.

Similarly, no matter how expertly constructed an engagement strategy, there is no way to change the fact that the customer is under no obligation to experience it the way the business intended.

This fundamental dilemma underscores very real challenges associated with customer experience management. It reveals why a business that says it cares about customers can continue to operate at a significant distance from customer interest. It reveals why a business that actualizes its philosophical “customer-centricity” does not guarantee itself results.

The dilemma dooms business strategy to imprecision, but if the business sees the customer experience as a pivotal part of its operation, the dilemma cannot compel inaction.

This report investigates how organizations are taking action and navigating the dilemma. What are they doing to determine what customers want? What are they doing to transform that insight into strategy? What are they doing to transform that strategy into

action? What are they doing to measure that action? What are they doing to turn that measurement insight into a call for improvement? What are they doing to answer that call?

The report will confirm that businesses and their leaders identify customer loyalty and customer satisfaction as the biggest experience priorities. It will confirm that they promise to build human-to-human relationships with customers while resolving issues during the first contact. To determine whether they are succeeding, they rely extensively on customer feedback surveys and assessment from internal senior, mid-level and front line employees. They also rely on metrics and pay specific attention to CSat score and retention rate.

Metrics like average handle time and average speed of answer are no longer priorities for businesses, but they continue to play integral roles in customer experience performance culture. Businesses will not necessarily rid them from the mix, but they will commit to improving the more valuable metrics and leverage higher quality interactions to do so.

While not an attractive brand promise, accuracy plays an enormous role in shaping the interaction and will remain a priority moving forward. Quality of resolution also matters – businesses do not simply want to do enough to get the customer off the phone or out of the chat window; they want to end the matter on the correct terms.

Specific technologies and customer experience initiatives will help businesses remain agile in the face of marketplace changes. More importantly, they will help businesses conquer lingering performance challenges.

Businesses cannot escape the fundamental customer experience dilemma, but they can take actions to minimize the consequences of that dilemma and, in turn, maximize the results of their strategies.

Introduction: Resolving the Customer Experience Dilemma

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In January of 2014, Call Center IQ conducted this research with collaboration from an audience of customer service, customer experience and contact center professionals. Representing buy-side organizations, vendor organizations and independent consultancies, respondents contributed insights via a web survey and/or targeted, one-on-one interviews.

Requests to participate were issued irrespective of company size, contact center size or region, assuring that the sample represented a global customer management audience.

Participation nonetheless skewed in favor of larger organizations 45% of respondents represent an organization with more than 1,000 employees, and a total of 58% operate in workforces with at least 500 on the payroll. Only 34% work for organizations with fewer than 250 employees, and only 17% work alongside fewer than 50 people.

The heavy involvement of larger organizations did not, however, produce an equivalent skew in favor of large contact centers. If anything, the sample skewed in favor of smaller contact centers. A sizable 27% of respondents employ more than 250 agents, but 46% of respondent organizations contain fewer than 50 contact center seats.

Example respondent job titles included “VP, Global Customer Care,” “EVP, Corporate Strategy,” “Contact Center Team Leader,” “Chief Information Officer,” “SVP of Operations,” “Call Center Manager,” “Senior Director of Support Services,” “VP of Customer Operations,” “Director of E-Commerce,” “VP, Marketing” and “Global Director, Consumer Experience.”

Methodology and Demographics

Applying a broad term to a complex concept naturally produces ambiguity. When it comes to the notion of a “customer experience,” that ambiguity has produced many an inquiry into the meaning of the concept.

A frequent talking point for customer service professionals, the “customer experience” naturally finds itself used synonymously with the customer service experience. When discussing the impact of initiatives like “omni-channel customer care” and “average handle time” on the customer experience, individuals are very clearly looking at the concept through the customer support lens. What happens when a customer contacts the customer service department?

Others, meanwhile, adopt a broader approach. They recognize the customer experience as the totality of interactions between brand and business and thus consider all facets and forms of engagement. In this scenario, sales efforts, marketing efforts, advertisements, pricing structures, customer support and all related forms of passive and active engagement collectively define the “customer experience.”

Important for driving processes and determining which departments and stakeholders must be involved, the question of where the customer experience begins nonetheless carries significantly less strategic importance than why it begins.

Experiencing the Customer Experience

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Businesses, after all, will focus on challenges related to sales, pricing, marketing and support regardless of whether or not they are considered components of the customer experience. Incorporating a particular business function into the customer experience definition might more overtly articulate its relevance, but it does not actually create importance. The sales effort matters regardless of whether it is superficially presented as an independent focus or as a checkpoint on the customer experience journey.

What will meaningfully impact the various business functions is the core objective it sets for its customer experience. By defining the purpose of the customer experience, that objective will serve

The very use of the term customer experience seemingly comes with a clear directive for those businesses determining their core objectives. Insofar as it is an experience for the customer, the concept naturally suggests that the customer—and the needs and wants of that customer—should play a role in its realization.

“Ultimately customer experience is what your customers tell you it is,” declares InMoment’s Lonnie Mayne.

The nature of the business world, however, presents a potential challenge to that notion. Insofar as customers are not the ones developing or executing organizational strategy, their role in either process is certainly not assured. It might be called the customer experience, but it is a concept conceived and operationalized by businesses.

And the dilemma is not simply one of derivation and execution. It also concerns outcomes.

The manifestation of a customer experience affects customers more than it does businesses. Customers are the ones doing the experiencing and thus the ones ultimately affected by what the business chooses to offer.

The results, however, emerge in business terms. Customers react to what they are experiencing, but they have no inherent say in how the business measures and then manages against those reactions

If the reaction to a “dissatisfying” experience has no impact on the results a business chooses to measure, it will read far more favorably to the business than to the customer. Similarly, if an experience element beloved by customers fails to produce a tangible impact on business results, the business’ appreciation will doubtfully mirror that possessed by customers.

to dictate core strategy and the role each function plays in that strategy.

Everything—from the departments and stakeholders involved, to the way the brand promise is communicated to customers, to the way performance is measured—dovetails from that fundamental objective. Every piece of strategic development, every piece of technology and every moment of execution either deliberately or inevitably affects a business’ effort to reach its core customer experience objective.

A journey to better define, understand and improve the customer experience thus begins with an appreciation for that core objective.

“You can say that the customer experience is philosophically valuable,” asserts Harte Hanks’ Andrew Harrison,” but if it does not produce results that matter to the organization itself, the value doesn’t come through.

“Likewise, if the business is still focused on cost or old world productivity, the customer experience function will not perform the way the customers want it to.”

The link between customer reactions and business results thus determines the extent to which customer interests drive the business’ customer experience vision.

Businesses with visions traditionally identified as “customer-centric” do not necessarily possess a philosophically greater appreciation for the customers; they simply see a more obvious connection between reactions and results. They believe their best bet for achieving the desired results is to achieve the desired reactions.

According to Call Center IQ’s annual customer experience survey, 70% of respondents possess that belief. 36% say their businesses position “increasing customer satisfaction” as the paramount customer experience objective, while 34% believe “increasing customer loyalty” is the ultimate priority.

Impressed with the customer-minded result, Harte Hanks’ Harrison nonetheless believes “increasing customer loyalty” is a dramatically more valuable objective than “increasing customer satisfaction.”

“If you’re really looking to assess what defines the customer relationship and whether it can help you build your brand, you need to focus on loyalty,” elaborates Harrison. “With satisfaction, you’re just getting better at answering the customer’s initial questions.

An experience for the customer

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“Satisfaction is fine as a front-line KPI, but loyalty is a leadership objective.”

An additional 7% identify “increasing brand advocacy” as the top objective, while “gaining customer insights” and “reducing complaints” are the core focuses for 3% and 2% of organizations, respectively.

Concepts like customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and brand advocacy are “scores” rather than lines on the income statement, which means that the majority of surveyed professionals do see a fundamental alignment between customer experience reactions and customer experience results. 82% do subscribe to the notion that “what is good for the customer is ultimately what is good for the business.”

That is not to say the other 18% wholly rejects a correlation between business interests and customer interests. That 18% does, however, operate within businesses that believe any customer benefits must dovetail from the effort

The aforementioned data is not without a potential bias. Insofar as it stems from a survey targeted at contact center and customer management professionals, it reflects the views of those directly exposed to the impact of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. For such a group, reverence for driving satisfaction and loyalty represents the intuitive perspective.

To truly understand how businesses approach the customer experience, it is important to consider the perspective of those who directly focus on the business. What C-level executives define as the ultimate customer experience objective will not only reveal the universality of the customer-centricity concept but also the mentality that trickles down throughout the organization.

While not quite as centered on customer loyalty and satisfaction, the C-level, too, views those focuses as most important.

to drive favorable financial results. They do not believe focusing primarily on achieving customer outcomes is a guaranteed means of optimizing business outcomes.

10% of respondents believe the customer experience is ultimately designed to drive revenue. Because of the potential for overlap between customer-oriented and revenue-oriented initiatives, these businesses will not necessarily design and deliver bad experiences. But if a situation emerges in which the business must choose between a strategy that only directly promises a revenue boost rather than one that only directly promises a customer satisfaction or loyalty boost, the business will opt for the former. And just as opting for the customer-centric option could result in less revenue for the business, the decision to opt in favor of the revenue-centric one could result in a less satisfying experience for customers.

5% take that approach with profit as their core objective, while 2% do so with the aim of reducing costs.

According to respondents, “increasing customer loyalty” is a top priority for 29% of C-level executives. 21% see “increasing customer satisfaction” as the ultimate goal, while 8% are consumed with elevating brand advocacy. An additional 4% most notably use the customer experience as a means of gaining customer insights. The same percentage is committed to reducing complaints.

That means that 66% of C-suites—a clear majority—adopts the customer-oriented approach the customer experience. While financial concerns are more important for this group than they are for respondents (20% say revenue is the top priority, while 6% feel that way about increasing profit and driving cost, respectively), they are not, on the whole, more notable drivers than customer-facing objectives.

Customer-centricity is thus not simply an invention of the overly demanding customer or the self-glorifying contact center professional. It is a business reality.

The business leader’s approach to the customer experience

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Q1 Top Customer Experience Objective (Respondent’s Perspective vs. C-Level Perspective)

Increase revenue

Reduce costs

Increase profit

Increase customer satisfaction

Increase customer loyalty

Gain customer insights

Reduce customer complaints/negative sentiment

Increase brand advocacy

9.7%

19.5%

1.8%

5.3%

36.3%

21.2%

33.6%

29.2%

2.7%

1.8%

3.5%

7.1%

8.0%

3.5%

6.2%

6.2%

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The fundamental customer experience objective helps dictate the design, but it is not the design itself. Whether a business chooses to recognize customer satisfaction, brand loyalty or revenue generation as its core customer experience objective, the recognition is only the first step. It then must determine how to create a customer experience that achieves the desired goal.

It also must consider how to present its customer experience to customers. How will the business’ aim to drive customer loyalty impact the interactions the customer has with the brand? What does a business’ desire to reduce costs mean for the experience a customer receives?

A customer, after all, does not have any direct interest in the business’ internal objectives. His interest concerns how those internal objectives result in an external customer engagement experience.

That a business emphasizes customer satisfaction as its objective therefore offers no guarantee of an experience superior to that delivered by a revenue-minded business. If the satisfaction objective does not manifest in an optimal experience for customers, neither it nor the business will actually read as customer-centric.

Action, obviously, trumps all. But if a customer were going to assess a business’ customer experience prior to encountering successful or unsuccessful interaction efforts, he would rely on the brand’s promise. When a business communicates its customer experience to customers—regardless of its fundamental, internal objective—what does it establish as its priority? For what does it expect customers to hold its experience accountable?

“Your brand is a promise sets expectations for every interaction your customers have with your company,” explains IQ Services’ Mike Burke.” It’s

really important to reognize and then promise elements beyond the smile on the teller’s face or the quality of the good or service you sell.”

For the greatest percentage of businesses, that promise is one of a long-term relationship.

A logical manifestation of the popular loyalty objective, 22% of businesses say the notion of a long-term relationship is their biggest customer experience promise. They want to assure that interactions are not singular in nature but part of a long-term journey between brand and customer.

The popularity of long-term engagement is not, however, a sign that resolute transactions are out of fashion. Identified as the top promise by 18% of businesses, first contact resolution represents the next-most popular priority. Businesses want customers to know that a good experience involves a solution a problem or issue during the very first contact.

Other popular core promises include personalization/customization (13%), an emphasis on human-to-human connections between brand representatives and customers (12%), high-value resolutions (9%) and efficiency (9%).

When positioned in a spectrum, the key promises reveal the absence of a universally accepted shortcut or “secret sauce” in the customer experience realm. Treating customers—and investing in real relationships with those humans—is a valuable part of the customer experience. Resolving their transactional problems quickly, completely and successfully is also very important.

While not necessarily irrelevant, custom/unorthodox resolutions (0%), proactive care (3%), accuracy (4%) and omni-channel (4%) are rarely positioned as top brand promises.

Customer experience: from design to promise

Driven by an internal objective and an external promise, the customer experience represents a tangible business focus. It is not simply something about which to think or talk; the customer experience is something that needs to be designed, delivered, optimized and sustained.

The objective and promise—and specific way a business interprets those—will tremendously impact the design, delivery, optimization and sustenance of the customer experience.

So too will the customer experience’s positioning within the organization.

The individuals and departments responsible for influencing and overseeing the customer experience will directly—and significantly—affect the realization of that experience.

In addition to influencing customer experience execution by virtue of their management styles, closeness to the front line, closeness to business stakeholders, resources and personnel, specific customer experience leadership also introduce additional human variance to the already murky world of customer experience objectives and promises. Concepts like gaining customer insights, driving satisfaction and building customer

Managing the customer experience

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17.7% First contact resolution

4.4% Omni-channel

2.7% Proactive

8.8% High-value resolutions

0% Unorthodox/custom resolutions

8.8% Quickness/Efficienc

3.5% Accuracy

13.3% Personalization/customization of service

11.5% Relationships (human-to-human connections)

22.1% Relationships (long-term journey between brand and customer)

Q2 What is the brand’s biggest customer experience promise?

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relationships can mean different things to different stakeholders, which means two organizations with the same overarching customer experience vision can end up with vastly different experiences in actuality.

While there is no accounting for the vast individual variance within organizations, the annual CCIQ survey reveals a commonality of preference when it comes to situating the customer experience within businesses.

71% of businesses (41% in the former, 30% in the latter) offer ultimate customer experience authority to either the customer experience/customer service team or the C-level/executive team. Supportive of the notion that the customer experience is a core business focus, the majority’s authority distribution does not treat it as an auxiliary component. For that 71% of businesses, it either warrants its own dedicated department or functions under the auspices of the executive rank.

Harte Hanks’ Harrison is particularly enthusiastic about situating customer experience strategy within the C-suite.

“Customer experience needs to start at the C-level,” says Harrison. “If the top executives don’t set the pace and priority, then the rest of the organization can’t align.”

Operations (8%) and marketing (7%) represent the next-most popular authority options. IT (2%) and communications/public relations (1%) generally do not oversee the customer experience function.

Organizational positioning is not, however, merely a question of authority. The hierarchy reveals which departments make the final decisions and create the greatest actualization of objectives, but it does not capture the full scope of influence on the experience.

The internal and external entities that partner with the core customer experience group also contribute immensely to the final experience.

Internally, such partnership is very common – and very valued.

65% of businesses confirm significant levels of internal customer experience partnership, and a total of 44% believe they need to increase partnership levels. An additional 29% of businesses confirm some degree of partnership and want to expand.

Only 4% exclusively completely manage their customer experiences in siloes, and half of them want to begin partnering.

“Now,” explains InMoment’s Mayne, “I see companies beginning to understand that customers actually have a lot of incredible insights that can benefit just about every part of the business, and those closest to customers can benefit from the proximity. As a result, we’re seeing more people and groups within companies climb on the customer experience bandwagon.”

Mayne does not simply believe the individual stakeholders stand to reap their own benefits from a greater involvement in the customer experience process. He also believes the overall success of the customer experience hinges on widespread involvement within the business.

“It’s dangerous to charge a single department with executing on your customer experience,” cautions Mayne. “No one person or department can ‘own’ your customer experience. If you’re going to succeed in this area, you’ve got to build a culture where every single employee understands his or her role in the customer experience and is empowered to fully own those individual moments that contribute to your overall success. “

While external customer experience partnerships are less popular and less valued, they still factor immensely into the contemporary business atmosphere.

A total of 77% of businesses confirm at least some degree of external customer experience partnership, and 27% identify that degree as significant. 59% of businesses want to increase their current level of external partnership.

When pursuing increased external partnerships, businesses will need to establish accountability for both performance and cultural standards.

“Just as every person within your organization needs to be held accountable for and supported in owning their part of the customer experience, so do external partners,” says InMoment’s Mayne. “Customer centricity is a way of doing business that requires participation for all parts of an organization, inside and out.”

“Businesses need to impose their culture on outsourcers,” adds Harte Hanks’ Harrison. “Client businesses and outsources need to be linked at every level –from recruiting, to training to performance management. Creating that closeness between brand and outsourcer is the only means of assuring a closeness between outsourced personnel and end-user customers.”

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31.0% C-level/executive team

39.8% Customer experience/customer service department

8.0% Operations

1.8% IT

7.1% Marketing

5.3% Sales/Business Development

0.9% Communications/PR

Q3

Q4

Which department is ultimately responsible for the customer experience?

What role do/should internal and external partnerships play in the customer experience?

Do not at all, Do not think we should

Do not at all, Think we should

Do somewhat, Think we should partner less

Do somewhat, Content with current level of partnership

Do somewhat, Think we should partner more

Do significantly, Think we should partner less

Do significantly, Content with current level of partnership

Do significantly, Think we should partner more

Internal Partnerships External Partnerships


The surplus of stakeholders, decision makers, influencers and partners reflects the magnitude of the customer experience. Not simply something that lives and dies in the contact center, it commands the attention and involvement of many different voices. It matters to the business.

A source of encouragement, the far-reaching scope of the contact center also imposes a significant burden on organizations. In order to direct all internal and external efforts toward fulfilling the brand promise and achieving the business objective, the organization must develop a clear perspective on what factors impact the customer experience, how that impact translates into results and how those results speak to success.

Whether the aim is to reduce customer interaction costs, improve customer satisfaction or tangibly drive additional revenue, the business needs to carefully and productively channel its performance management efforts. From identifying the right outcomes, to determining which metrics serve as proxies for those outcomes, to figuring out which experience elements impact those metrics and those outcomes, the performance management process is what separates an organization that values the customer experience from one that receives value from its customer experience.

Managing Customer Experience Performance

What is the overall result of a successful customer experience?

Whether positioned in the executive suite or in the contact center, today’s business leaders tend to see customer-oriented focuses like satisfaction and loyalty as their top priorities.

There is no rule, however, requiring businesses to care exclusively about those priorities. The customer experience is a broad, complex concept, and it will therefore come with a myriad of ramifications for businesses. How a business works to optimize those ramifications will define success in a manner one might not be able to achieve by exclusively focusing on a singular priority.

An effective performance management strategy begins with a statement of those optimal outcomes. A business might care most about how well its customer experience generates loyalty and satisfaction, but its customer experience will also impact variables like revenue and cost. The value a business ascribes to these alternative outcomes will provide a more complete basis for optimizing the customer experience. It will help determine which initiatives to undertake, which solutions to implement and which sacrifices to make.

If you’re going to say the customer experience is paramount, you have to measure every element of the customer experience,” says Harte Hanks’ Harrison.

It, most notably, puts performance measurement into context. It is what transforms “scores” into assessments and directives. It is what makes metrics relevant and valuable for strategy rather than merely for benchmarking.

“The customer experience must align with how the brand wants to be represented and what the brand wants to achieve,” explains Harte Hanks’ Harrison. “You need to establish that framework before you can properly assess performance. Otherwise, you’re just measuring random, static metrics.”

Predictable given their prominence as core customer experience objectives, “customer satisfaction growth” and “customer loyalty growth” represent the most valuable customer outcomes. Graded on a quantified importance scale of 0-5, the two outcomes post respective scores of 4.2 and 4.1.

Customer advocacy growth, which alongside satisfaction and loyalty completes the trifecta of customer-centric focuses, also represents a particularly coveted customer experience outcomes. Businesses assess a 4.0 ranking to such a result.

Other pivotal customer experience outcomes include “Improved understanding of customers” (3.8) and “improved reputation” (3.6). The two outcomes align with the “gain customer insights” and “reduce complaints” objectives.

Identifying the Outcomes


Q5 How important are the following customer experience outcomes?

Revenue growth

Cost reduction

Call deflection/volume reduction

Prompt increased spending/repeat business from customers

Gain in market share

Profit growth

Customer satisfaction growth

Customer loyalty growth

Customer advocacy growth

Reputational improvement

Improved understanding of customers

Media coverage

Industry awards

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5


On the one hand, the clear articulation of customer experience objectives makes contact center “metrics” seem insignificant. Why should a business worry about intermediary “scores” when it can focus on how successfully it achieves its overarching objectives?

While perhaps positioned rhetorically, that question is not without a very valid answer.

Overarching outcomes like revenue and satisfaction increases are the product of numerous intermediary movements. Expertly selected metrics help a business optimize those intermediary components and thus optimally achieve their core objectives.

To assure ideal output from the people, processes and technology involved in the customer experience mix, the business must drive the organizational conditions that best drive the final outcome.

In addition to driving performance, intermediary metrics also serve to contextualize outcomes. Awareness of increased satisfaction, loyalty, advocacy and revenue might be rewarding, but it paints a decidedly limited picture. It does not inherently reveal the specific conditions that are driving the desirable outcomes and does not identify the microscopic conditions that could be bottlenecking the final outcomes.

Naturally—and most importantly--outcome data alone provides no indication of whether or not it is being optimized. Is the current level of customer loyalty good because it is better than where it was last year or bad because it is not as high as it should be?

Answering that question requires understanding how each microscopic metric impacts the macroscopic outcome and then zeroing in on those with the greatest ramifications. If an organization is confident that its performance is optimal, it can more confidently accept its results as optimal.

To the extent that they directly assess performance against core objectives, metrics like CSat score and retention rate are naturally popular with businesses. Respondents assess the respective metrics at 4.0/5 and 3.5/5.

They are not, however, the only metrics deemed important when assessing customer experience performance.

Service level carries the same 3.5/5 score as retention rate. First contact resolution follows closely with a 3.4/5, while time to resolution commands a 3.2/5 from responding organizations.

Statements on the importance of efficiency and efficacy, the value ascribed to these metrics underscores the role action plays in customer experience strategy. Caring about customers – and their satisfaction – is important, but true success is not achieved by concern. It is achieved when the business uses that concern to drive actual organizational performance.

Metrics of little importance to contemporary businesses are blockage (1.7), transfer rate (2.1), self-service utilization rate (2.2), call deflection rate (2.3) and contact volume by channel (2.3).

While today’s businesses are not developing their customer experiences for the primary purpose of increasing revenue or reducing costs, business outcomes do matter. Their importance rankings do not trump those of the aforementioned customer-minded objectives—and thus do not dispel the notion that many businesses see concepts like customer satisfaction and customer loyalty as acceptable ends rather than revenue-conditioned means—but they definitely help businesses assess their experience strategies.

The “profit growth” and “driving repeat business” outcomes register with scores of 3.5/5. Businesses ascribe a 3.3 to revenue growth, a 3.3 to increased market share and a 3.2 to cost reduction.

Outcomes of considerably lesser importance concern vanity. Businesses rate the importance of “media coverage” and “industry awards” at 2.2 and 2.1, respectively.

On Metrics: Connecting Performance to Outcomes


Q6 How important are the following metrics?

Average handle time

First call resolution

Call deflection rate

Average speed of answer

Service level

After call work

Hold time

Customer effort score

Customer satisfaction score

Self-service utilization rate

Abandon rate

Transfer rate

Blockage

Accuracy of agent information score

Customer loyalty/retention rate

Time to resolution

Frequency of customer callback

Net Promoter Score

Social media feedback score

Contact volume by channel

Employee satisfaction score

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5


Properly selected metrics create an alignment between organizational performance and customer experience outcomes.

Though pivotal, that alignment represents only one piece of the performance puzzle.

Just as customer experience results are of direct importance to the business but not so much to the customer, the connection between metrics and experience outcomes is a business-centric focus. An organization uses metrics to signal and drive the operational performance that optimizes outcomes, but a customer’s concern is how that performance manifests as an actual interaction experience.

Since that interaction experience plays an instrumental role in driving customer-oriented results like increased satisfaction and loyalty—two popular “outcomes” for organizations—it is important to understand how performance is shaping those interactions. Aggregate performance statistics mean nothing if they do not speak to the actual experience being created.

To properly incorporate this perspective into performance management strategy, a business must identify the interaction elements of particular value to customers. Great experiences might foster satisfaction and loyalty, but what makes an experience great?

Accuracy, says today’s business community.

It might not represent a popular brand promise, but it does play a significant role in the engagement experience. Businesses assess accuracy’s impact on interaction quality at a 4.1/5.

“It must be simplistic, efficient and accurate,” says Harte Hanks’ Andrew Harrison of the optimal customer experience.

“They’ve got something to do, they want to do it efficiently, and they want to be done with it,” adds IQ Services’ Burke.

Other notable success factors include “quality resolutions” (4.0/5), a human-to-human connection between agent and customer (3.6/5), an agent’s empowerment/ability to offer resolutions without additional approval or delay (3.6/5) and first contact resolution (3.6/5).

Harte Hanks’ Harrison is a particular proponent of the human-to-human connection.

“If you can not only pick up the call and answer the customer’s questions but do so while speaking in their voice and show that you actually understand and care – that you’re actually listening – you create a delightful experience,” says Harrison.

Less relevant interaction elements include offering the ability to span channels within a single interaction (2.5/5), assuring agents can access past customer interaction information regardless of channel (2.7/5) and minimal transfers (2.7/5).

The importance hierarchy reveals the importance of interactional substance. A business that provides the right information and the right resolution on the first call is doing right by its customers.

“Omni-channel” elements like seamless channel spanning are not irrelevant, but they do not play as integral a role in the experience. A customer might appreciate the ability to switch between channels without having to restate information, but his bigger concerns are that his questions get answered and that his issues get resolved.

On Interactions: Connecting Performance to the Customer


Q7 How important are the following interaction elements?

Speed

Accuracy

Occurs in customer’s preferred channels

Details from previous interactions are available to agents (in same channel)

Customer can span channels during single interaction

Customer can span channels and details from previous interactions are available to agents

Few or zero transfers

Personalization

Personal connection between agent & customer (relationship, conversation, etc)

Resolution on first contact

Quality resolution

Resolution consistent with customer’s first demand

Low customer effort

Agent empowered to give solution (without additional approval/delay)

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5


Clarity on the appropriate objectives, outcomes, metrics and experiential elements assists with calibrating the effort, but it assures neither action nor results. Knowing what is right for customers and most valuable for the business is not the same as offering those rights and creating that value.

The customer experience function, like all businesses, must operate with cognizance of the difference between talking and walking. And insofar as the customer experience is perceived as an important business objective that requires action, businesses must operate with cognizance of the fact that walking is the behavior that matters.

By not only articulating their various customer experience objectives but demonstrating clear synergy between those objectives, the majority of businesses reveal that bottlenecks will not come in the form of philosophy. Businesses know what matters to them and what matters to customers

and therefore know what they must achieve when devising and executing customer experience strategies.

Unfortunately, many other potential bottlenecks do still exist. Knowing what matters to the customer experience is not the same as knowing how to deliver it. Knowing the potential value of a customer experience strategy is not the same as knowing how to win organizational support for the initiative. Knowing how a customer experience should transform is not the same as knowing how to break the organizational inertia that prevents that transformation.

A business might possess the right mindset, but it is the manifestation of that mindset that determines success. An inquiry into the customer experience therefore requires a comparison between the type of experience businesses believe they should be offering and the one they are actually offering.

Delivering the Customer Experience

When it comes to the customer experience, priorities breed performance.

Asked to grade their success in driving customer experience outcomes, respondents reveal a hierarchy that aligns closely with the way they value those priorities.

Growth in customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy, which businesses define as the three most important customer experience outcomes, are the ones for which they are enjoying the greatest levels of success.

The consistency continues for the next two outcomes—improving customer understanding and reputation the next most valued and next most realized outcomes.

Alignment also exists at the bottom of the ladder. Businesses do not believe “industry awards” and “media coverage” represent meaningful outcomes, and they are not notably achieving those outcomes.

Organizations are not successful at deflecting calls, and they do not necessarily believe they need to be.

The connection between performance priorities and performance scores does, however, come with two notable points of divergence.

One concerns profit growth. While businesses ascribe a comparatively solid level of importance to profitability, they have not proven particularly successful in doing so. Of the outcomes assessed by respondents, it was deemed the seventh-most important but only the eleventh-most successful.

The other, which is a considerably more macroscopic disparity, involves disconnect between value and success. While the hierarchies are generally similar, the performance grades are dramatically weaker than the value scores.

Priority outcomes like satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy, for instance, possess respective value scores of 4.2, 4.1 and 4.0. Their performance scores, however, register at 3.0, 2.7 and 2.6.

The disparity exists throughout the food chain. Low priority objectives like industry awards, media coverage and call deflection possess respective value marks of 2.1, 2.2 and 2.9, but they command performance grades of only 1.3, 1.6 and 2.2.

Customer Experience Outcomes: Strong Alignment, Weak Performance


Q8 How well does your organization achieve these outcomes?

Revenue growth

Cost reduction

Call deflection/volume reduction

Prompt increased spending/repeat business from customers

Gain in market share

Profit growth

Customer satisfaction growth

Customer loyalty growth

Customer advocacy growth

Reputational improvement

Improved understanding of customers

Media coverage

Industry awards

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5


On the surface, performance related to metrics adheres to a similar pattern.

As is the case with outcomes, performance scores are highest for the metrics deemed most valuable (CSat score and service level, in this case). As is the case with outcomes, performance scores for those metrics trail the corresponding value assessments. Organizations, therefore, are not achieving performance consistent with the significance they ascribe to key metrics.

The metrics and outcome performance landscapes are not, however, without a fundamental point of divergence.

That divergence concerns the performance level associated with several metrics that do not fare impressively on the importance scale.

According to respondents, performance for metrics like average handle time, hold time, abandon rate and average speed of answer, which are deemed to be of moderate importance to businesses, is comparatively stellar. Businesses rate the value of the aforementioned metrics at 2.4, 2.7, 2.8 and 3.0 but performance at 3.2, 2.8, 3.0 and 3.2, respectively.

That positive differential does not exist for any of the metrics deemed more important. Businesses, therefore, are more consistently achieving the more moderate of their performance goals.

While there is logic to that notion – it is easier to meet lower expectations – it is counterintuitive from a priority standpoint. Since effort should intuitively be proportionate to priority, the differential should be consistent throughout. A business should not be inherently better at achieving lower priority goals (which are easier to achieve but also warrant less effort) than higher priority goals (which are more difficult to achieve but command more attention).

The hierarchical consistency of customer experience outcomes supports this notion; businesses were not routinely over-delivering in their low-priority areas. Their performance levels were consistent—and consistently low.

Moreover, the fact that performance for lower priority metrics like average handle time (3.2 performance; 2.4 importance) notably exceeds that for higher priority metrics like customer

retention rate (2.7 performance; 3.5 importance) and first contact resolution (2.8 performance; 3.4 importance) renders the expectation discussion moot. Performance for lower priority metrics is not simply favorable in the context of lower expectations; it is favorable in comparison to higher priority metrics.

Tradition represents a potential culprit. Insofar as metrics like average handle time and average speed of answer have long reigned as standard indications of contact center performance, businesses are potentially conditioned to deliver in those regards. Their contact center and customer experience functions were built to keep handle time and answer speed low. As a result, they continue to do so even though such metrics are no longer considered meaningful customer experience barometers.

Insofar as they are either newer—or at least newer priorities—customer-oriented metrics naturally inspire performance gaps for businesses. Organizations believe those metrics matter, but they are less clear—or at least less consistently successful—in how to translate that importance into performance.

Agency also plays a relevant role. Metrics like average speed of answer, which help to measure operational efficiency, fall more clearly under the auspices of the organization. If the business wants to answer interactions more quickly, it can construct a customer experience function that does so. If a business wants to improve average handle time, it can directly build that demand into its employee management strategy.

A business can certainly take measures to improve customer-oriented metrics like CSat score and retention rate, but it has less overt control over the outcome. If it hires enough staff to cover the phones, its average speed of answer will meet expectations. If it introduces supposedly customer-centric elements to its interaction, it might or might not make customers more satisfied and loyal.

Superior performance for operational metrics is, therefore, not necessarily a sign that the business is trying harder to improve those metrics. It does, however, mean that the effort (whether significant or insignificant) it is committing to customer-oriented metrics is not producing the optimal outcome. That effort must either be improved or recalibrated.

From the disparity emerges a clear conclusion: performance is not optimal. Businesses view certain customer experience outcomes as pivotal—and none as truly irrelevant—but are not achieving any with aplomb.

They might be channeling their efforts correctly, but they are not supporting those efforts with enough ferocity.

Customer Experience Metrics: Tradition and Traditional Mediocrity


Q9 How well does your business perform against these metrics?

Average handle time

First call resolution

Call deflection rate

Average speed of answer

Service level

After call work

Hold time

Customer effort score

Customer satisfaction score

Self-service utilization rate

Abandon rate

Transfer rate

Blockage

Accuracy of agent information score

Customer loyalty/retention rate

Time to resolution

Frequency of customer callback

Net Promoter Score

Social media feedback score

Contact volume by channel

Employee satisfaction score

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5


If the business values the customer experience and cares about driving satisfaction, its mentality should theoretically produce interactions of the utmost quality. Those interactions, after all, represent the most direct link between brand and customer and thus the most obvious pathway to customer satisfaction.

Businesses acknowledge that their interactions are not yet of the utmost quality. They do, however, believe their delivery of key interaction elements is far nearer to valuation than it is for many high-priority outcomes and metrics.

Accuracy (4.1), quality of resolution (4.0) and personal connections between agents and customers (3.6), the three elements business deem most theoretically important to the interaction experience, are the three strongest components of actual interactions. Asked to assess how their customers would score performance against those metrics, respondents provide respective scores of 3.6, 3.5 and 3.4.

The same connection generally exists at the other end of the spectrum. Channel spanning within the interaction (2.5), channel spanning over time (2.7) and offering interactions in the customer’s preferred channel (3.4) are three of the four least important interaction elements, and they are the ones for which performance is weakest (2.3, 2.4, 2.9, respectively). Performance trails value, but it does not do so as notably as it does for customer experience.

While there are some disparities between the value and performance hierarchies—speed, for instance, fares better on the latter—the pattern holds true for all but one metric. Performance scores trail, albeit narrowly, corresponding value scores.

Businesses might see accuracy as the most important interaction element, but they believe improvements in resolution quality will present more marginal value.

Asked to identify their commitment to improving interaction elements, businesses confirm that resolution quality will command the most attention over the next 6-18 months. Respondents rate that commitment level at a 4.0/5.

Accuracy is not, however, fading out of focus. With a score of 3.9/5, it represents the second greatest improvement priority.

“Few or zero transfers” represents the lone exception. It is third-least important on the value scale and only a few places higher on performance, but its performance score (2.9) actually exceeds its value score (2.7). That positive differential does not exist for any other metric.

Data for interaction elements aligns nicely with that for metrics and outcomes. Like the operational metrics, businesses possess a strong degree of agency when it comes to customer interactions. They cannot account for every variable and individual customer, but they can assure the mechanics of the interaction are up to par. If accuracy, resolution and human-to-human interactions matter, businesses can work to directly foster those qualities.

What businesses cannot do is assure a perfect translation between interaction elements (and efficiency metrics) and favorable outcomes. Part of that is attributable to the sum being greater than the parts; interactions are not the only aspect of the customer experience, and important interaction elements are therefore not the only drivers of customer satisfaction.

Part of that, meanwhile, is potentially attributable to businesses understanding the importance of the various interaction elements. Performance levels might land within the general ballpark of value scores, but if the value scores are too low, then the even lower performance scores will not drive optimal customer experience results.

The answer to better customer experience outcomes and metrics scores may lie in the extent to which businesses still aim to improve interaction elements.

Other key improvement areas include personalization (3.7/5), first contact resolution (3.7/5), personal connections between agents and customers (3.7/5) and reducing customer effort (3.7/5).

Less significant focuses, meanwhile, include channel spanning within a single interaction (3.0/5), channel spanning over time (3.1/5), and honoring a customer’s channel preference (3.4/5).

The data might confirm resolution quality and accuracy as the biggest focuses moving forward, but it also reveals a sweeping discontent with

Customer Experience Elements: Does the Customer See What the Business Feels

Customer Experience Elements: Driving Improvement at the Interaction Level


Q10 How would customers grade your organization when it comes to the following interaction elements?

Speed

Accuracy

Occurs in customer’s preferred channels

Details from previous interactions are available to agents (in same channel)

Customer can span channels during single interaction

Customer can span channels and details from previous interactions are available to agents

Few or zero transfers

Personalization

Personal connection between agent & customer (relationship, conversation, etc)

Resolution on first contact

Quality resolution

Resolution consistent with customer’s first demand

Low customer effort

Agent empowered to give solution (without additional approval/delay)

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5


existing performance levels. That even the low-value “omni-channel” elements will command solid attention suggests that businesses want to improve the totality of interactions.

That the top of the pyramid generally aligns with value scores, meanwhile, suggests that businesses are not radically second-guessing their importance assessments. They are already best at delivering accuracy, resolution and human-to-human connections, but that status quo superiority is not enough to spur complacency. The concepts are important to the interaction experience, and they will continue to be important to the interaction experience.

The most notable misalignments between existing importance scores, performance assessments and improvement commitments concern personalization and reducing customer effort. Neither is considered one of the five most important interaction elements and neither is rated as a particularly successful part of status quo interactions. Both, however, are in focus moving forward.

That focus does not suggest that businesses believe the two interaction elements are suddenly of immense importance. It does, however, reveal that businesses believe there is work to be done in those areas and above average value to be gained from doing that work.

Interaction elements might play an instrumental role in driving customer experience results, but they are ultimately results themselves. Like outcomes and metrics, they serve to benchmark performance more than they do to define the precise composition of a business’ customer experience.

And though it is necessary for establishing strategic priorities and assessing return on investments and initiatives, performance benchmarking does not capture the totality of the customer experience challenge. It does not fundamentally account for transformations in the marketplace, and it does not wholly address the mechanics of execution.

Data related to management structures, objectives and performance establishes a vital framework for tackling the customer experience challenges of today and tomorrow. It does not reveal precisely what occurs within that framework.

“We’re typically focused on why the numbers are moving,” explains Harte Hanks’ Harrison. “Is it something we did? Is it an environmental influence? KPIs and outcomes do not answer that.”

“When I see a company that is solely focused on scores as the measure of whether or not they are succeeding in their customer experience efforts,

I know that they’re in for a tough and ultimately unsatisfying journey,” adds InMoment’s Mayne. “Scores are great indicators, but they can’t help companies understand why customers are satisfied or unsatisfied. They also fail to provide direction on what to fix, and what to reinforce.”

He continues, “CSAT and Loyalty metrics are extremely helpful in giving companies an indication of how customers feel about their experience. However, tapping into the unstructured data – comments, social stories – as well as bringing contextual data from CRM and other systems into the picture can give you a much more comprehensive view.”

Whether focusing on driving accuracy and quality at the interaction level or moving the customer satisfaction, loyalty and revenue needles at the end of the chain, businesses will need to devise the right answer for every customer experience challenge that approaches. They will need to forge connections with the customers they are serving, jump in front of marketplace trends and explore means of operationalizing their philosophies and value structures.

Perfecting the Customer Experience


When it comes to business strategy, the concept of customer centricity is at constant risk of succumbing to a massive irony.

It, by definition, implies centering operations around the customer. Whether one colloquially refers to that notion as “getting closer to the customer,” “doing right by the customer,” or “giving the customer what he wants,” it very much implies that the satisfaction of a business’ own interests cannot be a precursor or bottleneck to satisfying customer interests.

Businesses will approach that concept from different perspectives—some will legitimately assure that business interests and customer interests are precisely aligned, while others will believe that business interests are met as a consequence of satisfying customer interests—but they do not dispute its fundamental philosophy. If a business is only accidentally or secondarily achieving a customer’s interests, its claim to the customer centric label is beyond dubious.

Appreciation for the concept of customer centricity is not, however, synonymous with appreciation for customer centric behavior. Wanting to do right by customers is only part of the battle; the balance entails figuring out how customers define that right. Deciding to do conceivably customer-centric things from within the insular boardroom is not fundamentally more customer-centric than acting entirely in accordance with short-term business objectives. To escalate to the point of customer centricity, a business’ approach must be rooted in the voice of the customer.

The manners in which a business captures that voice of the customer will simultaneously demonstrate a business’ desire to get “close to the customer” and affect the quality of information it receives.

For better or worse, the most popular ticket to closeness is the customer feedback survey.

Not simply the only voice of the customer tool used by the majority of businesses, the survey is more than twice as widespread as all but one option. A whopping 91% of businesses learn about customers using formal surveys and questionnaires.

Data source is not the only bottleneck on customer centricity.

Indicative of the aforementioned irony, businesses do not rely exclusively on customer insights to assess the customer experience. It is a business endeavor, and organizations afford significant

Not surprised by the data, IQ Services’ Burke nonetheless warns of the harm associated with using survey feedback as a chief source of customer insights.

“The downside of relying on peoples’ memories of interactions is that all too often, the experience as it’s remembered is colored by emotion, fogged by the passage of time and was probably somewhat different than the experience that was delivered,” explains Burke. “That is especially true if the experience was somehow negative.”

Given its historical prominence and potential for alignment with specific business endeavors, the feedback survey’s popularity is far from surprising. More surprising is the percentage of businesses not relying on some seemingly orthodox alternatives.

Unsolicited feedback shared during customer interactions, for instance, is a source of customer information for only 49% of businesses. That might make unsolicited feedback the second most popular source of customer insight, but it reveals that the majority of businesses do not learn about customers in that manner. For 51% of organizations, proactive customer feedback falls completely on deaf ears.

Insofar as customer-oriented metrics are very popular, a sizable number of businesses access the voice of the customer via qualitative assessments of interactions. By learning how their business is performing during customer interactions, 43% believe they can simultaneously learn about the customers.

While qualitative interaction assessments serve as proxies for the voice of the customer, businesses do not ascribe the same value to all performance indicators. Changes in interaction volume (19%) and purchasing (23%) are not as commonly used to gain customer insights.

Despite being predicated on providing in-contact information, interaction analytics are not a universal source of customer insights. Only 30% of businesses rely on contact analytics to get closer to customers.

An information source in 41% of businesses, online sentiment is a more popular option.

customer experience influence to internal business perspectives. The customer might be “right,” but he is not the only one to whom the business listens.

The existing customer’s perspective is the most important source of evaluation (4.0/5), but many others are nearly as important. Senior customer

Connecting to Customers

Connecting to Other Stakeholders


Q11 How do you acquire the voice of the customer?

Surveys/questionnaires - proactive

Inbound/unsolicited feedback

Social media/online sentiment

In-contact analytics

Qualitative assessments of interactions

Changes (or stagnancy) in purchasing

Changes (or stagnancy) in number of interactions

90.6%

49.1%

41.5%

30.2%

43.4%

22.6%

18.9%


Q12 How important are these opinions when evaluating the customer experience?

C-level/executive team

Senior contact center/customer experience management

Middle contact center/customer experience management

Front line agents

Non-customer experience employees

Existing customers

Previous customers

Prospective customers

Competitors

Media/reviewers/bloggers

Social media users

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5


Confident in the multi-channel and omni-channel revolutions, many customer experience thought leaders stress the use of “contact center” rather than “call center.”

Customer interactions are no longer restricted to the phone, these individuals argue.

While that is certainly true, they primarily take place in a telephony environment.

Offered by 94% of businesses, telephony is the most commonly offered contact channel but not dramatically more widespread than email (92%) and official websites (86%). Where it establishes its dominance, however, is in the utilization arena.

69% of use telephony for high-touch customer engagements. The same is true for email in only 34% of businesses and websites (naturally) in only 6%.

The next-most popular high-touch channel is the in-person environment, but its utilization for that purpose clocks in at a considerably lesser 47%.

That high-touch capabilities exceed utilization for virtually every conceivable channel suggests that the business is not the only bottleneck. Customer demand has evidently not compelled businesses to offer a broader palette of high-touch options.

No specific channel is connoted by the multi-channel and omni-channel movements, which instead bring the customer experience onto the myriad of potential engagement platforms.

Through their connection to customer behavior, social and mobile serve to underscore the omni-channel transformation and thus come to represent faces of the movement.

Businesses do anticipate that changing over the next six to eighteen months. Indicative of a changing landscape, high-touch engagement will increase for virtually every channel except telephony. Today’s organizations absolutely do foresee a shift away from the “call center.”

But just as one must exercise considerably restraint when referring to an omni-channel status quo, he must also recognize the limited velocity of landscape changes. More contact channels will become full-service engagement media, but telephony will remain the most popular host for high-touch brand-to-customer dialogue. Email, in some form, will be offered by more businesses than telephony (95% vs. 92%), but telephony will remain the most popular high-touch channel (67% vs. 54% for email and in-person).

“The research tells me that companies need to expand rather than eliminate the number and types of communication channels they offer customers,” explains InMoment’s Mayne. “It’s not about shifting to ‘new’ ways of engaging, it’s about offering more.”

The time has absolutely arrived for businesses to assure their customer experiences expand into a wide array of contact channels. The time to dispute telephony’s label as the most significant channel has not yet arrived.

While omni-channel customers can demand interactions in any channels of their choosing, they actually do spend much of their day-to-day lives in the mobile and social channels. Their organic behavior functions as a de facto statement of channel preference and thus turns the abstract ideal of omni-channel into a relatable reality.

management leaders (3.9/5), middle customer management managers (3.9/5), the C-suite (3.8/5) and front line agents (3.7/5) also wield considerable influence in performance evaluation.

That is not necessarily unexpected given the realities of business. What is unexpected, however, is the comparatively limited influence afforded to former and prospective customers.

Even though their input might hold the key to eliminating future attrition (and to winning back lost customers), the perspective of previous customers is rated at a lesser 3.2/5.

“The customer experience might have driven people to leave,” explains Harte Hanks’ Harrison. “But if it’s improved in a manner that will make them happy, those departed customers will potentially come back.”

A 3.3/5, meanwhile, is afforded to the prospective customers whose perspectives stand to reveal how a business can increase market share.

Not the top influencers, past and prospective customers are not the weakest influencers.

That distinction applies to entities like social media users (2.3/5), reviewers/journalists/bloggers (2.4/5) and non-customer experience employees (2.6/5).

The Transforming Platform

Mobile and Social Gain Traction


Establishing a vision is essential part of driving action. It can also be a hazardous part of the process.

Customer experience visions that establish clear performance benchmarks, identify clear challenges and present clear solutions generally assume a static marketplace. They focus on taking the business from a baseline state to an optimal one.

In reality, the customer experience strategy is very vulnerable to marketplace variables. One minor shift in the scenario—be it a change in customer sentiment, a change in product development or a change in the sales process or a change in consumption patterns—will impact the nature and magnitude of the challenges facing the business. If a business wants to achieve its desired results, its people, processes and technologies must be able to adapt to that transformation.

“Companies must operate in very different ways than in the past,” offers InMoment’s Mayne. “Creating and executing on five-year roadmaps is unimaginable.

“The best way to stay agile is to change your mindset and understand that your customers, your products and your technology will change - and change quickly. It’s not necessarily about choosing the right platform or program now, but understanding that whatever you select must be able to evolve”.”

Scalability and agility, therefore, represent essential pieces of the customer experience puzzle. Alarmingly, they do not represent strong suits for today’s businesses.

There is no variable for which businesses possess a stellar level of status quo scalability. They identify a surge of inbound complaints as the variable for which they are best able to adapt, but in providing a scalability score of just 2.9/5, businesses are not demonstrating much confidence.

Other scenarios for which they are comparatively scalable include interaction volume (2.6/5), growth in market share (2.6/5), new product launches (2.5/5) and expansion into new markets (2.4/5). Those modest scores effectively assure that customer experiences will suffer, at least to a degree, if any of these variables are introduced.

That customers communicate casually in social and mobile obviously does not meant they desire, let alone expect, to engage with businesses in those channels. The findings suggest that many do not.

But the fact that customers are comfortable in such channels makes their potential interest in using them for brand interactions easier to envision and accept. The logical leap becomes smaller, and the compulsion to act becomes bigger.

A broad look at the trend towards omni-channel is therefore enhanced by a more granular look at trends in favor of mobile and social customer engagement experiences.

That granular look reveals that businesses plan to grow their mobile and social support experiences over the next six to eighteen months.

Presently, social plays absolutely zero role in the support experiences for 23% of businesses. Mobile plays no role for 37%. After eighteen months, the social number will be more than halved (to 11%) and the mobile number will be reduced by nearly two thirds (to 14%). The majority of businesses abstaining from social and mobile plan to cease that policy.

Not simply looking to pay lip service to the ideas of social and mobile support, businesses also plan to expand their offerings.

When it comes to mobile, the number of businesses offering support for all issues will nearly double (from 19% to 35%). The percentages

of businesses using it exclusively for outbound communication or for routing customers to other channels will shrink (from 12% to 11% in the former and from 6% to 3% in the latter).

Presently accommodating all issues in 20% of businesses, social will do so in 37% of businesses after eighteen months. The percentage of businesses using it strictly for outbound communication will fall from 17% to 11%, while routing-only use will decline from 15% to 12%.

Those who believe omni-channel requires complete organizational neutrality—the business must serve the customer wherever he wants to be served—will not be satisfied with these numbers. Even if all businesses adhere to their plans for the next eighteen months, the majority will not be accommodating all support issues in their mobile and social channels. The majority of organizations, therefore, have absolutely no way of guaranteeing they can serve the customer wherever he wants to be served.

Those who fear indifference to the omni-channel issue, however, will find comfort in the data. Businesses are committed to adding and improving social and mobile support elements.

“These forums can be very intimate and effective, particularly for some demographics,” declares InMoment’s Mayne. “I believe that social isn’t just a trend but the beginning of a fundamentally different way of engaging with customers.”

Scaling for Success


Are mobile and social on the rise?Q13

Mobile (Present Day)

Mobile (After 18 Months)

Social (Present Day)

Social (After 18 Months)

None

Only outbound information

Only inbound feedback collection (no response provided)

Only inbound for routing (ex - customers who Tweet about a billing issue are given a number to call)

Support provided for low-touch, transactional matters

Support provided for all issues

36.9% 12.3% 1.5% 6.2% 24.6% 18.5%

13.8% 10.8% 4.60% 3.10% 30.80% 35.40%

23.10% 16.90% 1.50% 15.40% 20.00% 20.00%

10.80% 10.80% 4.60% 12.30% 21.50% 36.90%


Q14 How successfully can your organization scale for the following?

Interaction volume

Resolving customer support issues via social media

External customer complaints (social media, press, etc)

Inbound customer complaints (major good or service malfunction, recall, etc)

New/changing demand for contact channels

New product launches

Trends in customer insights

Trends in marketplace/competitive practices

Growth in market share (within same market)

Expansion into new markets

New infrastructure/architecture (switch to cloud-based technology, etc)

New operational technology (desktop, CRM, etc)

New customer interaction platforms (virtual agents, self-service, mobile applications)

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5


While technology presents its own scalability challenges, it also empowers businesses to carry out their customer experience objectives. From facilitating personalized connections, to improving interaction accuracy, to managing the efficiency of the workforce, technology solutions are a gateway to customer experience success.

Gateway is the key word, because such solutions ultimately represent tools for conquering challenges and subsequently carrying out established customer experience objectives. An outcome is not valuable because it is associated with technology; technology is valuable because it can produce an outcome.

“Success is not just about how well your agents handle your customers, it’s also about how well your technology handles your customers,” says IQ Services’ Burke. “Whether you’re a brand manager, CCXO, or contact center manager, you owe it to your customers, your brand, and yourself to know that your contact center technology is defending your brand promise and not throwing it in the tank.”

Sure enough, purchasing trends align with customer experience strategic priorities

Consistent with the value ascribed to customer relationships, a healthy amount of businesses are committed to initiating journey mapping solutions. 31% of businesses say they are not using a journey mapping solution but plan to start over the next eighteen months. No other solution will command the same degree of new investment.

Some will come very close; those, too, are aligned with strategic priorities. 30% of businesses plan to introduce mobile application solutions. An equal percentage plan to purchase mobile customer experience solutions. Improved mobile support represents a major priority for the next eighteen months.

Interaction analytics represents one of the least prominent options for collecting customer insights. To change that, 27% of businesses will make their initial forays into the world of real-time analytics.

Given scalability deficiencies, the fact that 26% of businesses plan to introduce cloud contact center solutions is far from surprising.

The value ascribed to the interaction experience—and specifically to elements like human-to-human connections—necessitates a need for improvement

in the agent pool. For 26% of businesses, the answer to getting there lies in the introduction of eLearning and training technology.

Insofar as many integral technology pieces already exist within most customer experience functions, looking only at new investment naturally paints a limited picture. An inquiry into plans for increased investment is also relevant.

That inquiry produces the revelation that hardware and infrastructure are top priorities.

68% of businesses plan to increase their hardware and headset investments. 66% say the same about infrastructure and servers.

Both address factors like accuracy and reliability; the latter also speaks to the need for scalability in the constantly evolving marketplace.

By revealing a commitment to improve all interaction elements, businesses demonstrate the importance of interaction quality. Some interaction elements are more important than others, but all play a role, and all need to be optimized. To assess that optimization, 66% will increase utilization of quality management tools.

Integral to assessing and improving the customer experience but not exhaustively covered in the status quo, customer feedback is top of mind for businesses. 60% plan to increase their investments.

54% will expand their reliance on ACD solutions.

Strategic Initiatives as Answers

Technology provides a means of undertaking and optimizing strategic endeavors. The nature, quality and relevance of the endeavors themselves, therefore, play an enormous role in determining the relevance of particular technological solutions and the resonance of their application.

Little variance exists when it comes to jumpstarting strategic initiatives. A great deal are in the works for businesses, and no particular initiative is a runaway favorite.

The slight favorite is establishing a 360 degree view of the customer. While businesses do not ascribe significant value to channel spanning, they do value personalization and relationship-building. A broader, yet more vivid insight into the customer—as a customer rather than the person on the other

Technology as an Answer

That suffering will be greater if the variables are changing demands for contact channels (1.7/5), the introduction of new customer interaction platforms (2.0/5), support correspondence in social media (2.1/5), changes in marketplace or competitive practices (2.1/5) or the initiation of new operational technology (2.1/5).

Since no such variable seems unrealistic or even unlikely in today’s flux marketplace, customer experience assessments need to be discounted. As far from perfect as it is in status quo conception, performance will be even worse in practice.


end of a transaction—plays an integral role in fulfilling those objectives. 29% of businesses, therefore, plan to start undertaking this initiative.

28% say the same about accommodating customers in their channel preferences. Omni-channel interaction elements did not score highly, but businesses evidently still value them. That they are not the most valuable components of an interaction does not, after all, mean they are not expected, growingly necessary pieces of the puzzle.

Growing emphasis on customer-centricity does not mean businesses cannot think about their own self-interest. It, similarly, does not mean businesses cannot make internal decisions about how best to deliver what customers really want. Whether they are taking the former, glass-half-empty approach or the latter, glass-half-full one, businesses are showing that what is on the inside also counts. 26% plan to begin routing multi-channel customers based on organizational efficiency.

A similar 26% will begin offering proactive engagement, while 25% will initiate proactive care.

It might be the most popular means of learning about customers, but businesses have no plans to remove its spotlight.

As far as existing endeavors go, customer feedback surveys will command the greatest increase in attention. 76% plan to increase their reliance on the practice.

That number is encouraging for a thought leader like InMoment’s Mayne, who worries that businesses are not doing enough to capture customer feedback.

“Opportunities for customers to provide feedback should be offered at every touch point so that customers can engage on their own terms,” says Mayne of one way to improve feedback initiatives. “Businesses must be able to collect and surface insights out of all types of data in order to understand the full customer experience picture. “

64% plan to increasingly empower agents to provide custom solutions. The increased attention makes sense in light of the fact that businesses want to improve resolution quality, first contact resolution and customer effort. All three improve when the agent is in position to seamlessly do what is best for the customer.

Agent coaching and engagement (55%), proactive customer care (55%) and social engagement (53%) will also command increased attention.

Similar to the emphasis on eLearning, the coaching focus speaks to the valuable role the agent plays in driving customer experience success. The agent’s ability to connect with customers matters, and the business’ customer experience philosophies and strategies will help to create that ability.

“Agents need explicit understanding of their role in the customer experience,” says InMoment’s Mayne. “They need to be coached to excel in this role, and supported in growing in areas where they fall short.”

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