Changing customer demands can be difficult for service-driven businesses, but they can also be a positive driver of change. For instance, one of the least surprising outcomes of the turmoil of 2020 has been the shift towards more responsive digital systems in response to customers’ needs for faster access to information.
When considering a change to your customer experience management (CXM) platform the perceived cost of updating or migrating may be a disincentive, but compared to the costs of staying stagnant, it is negligible. In fact, compared to maintenance costs, it is insignificant. Gartner has estimated that implementation costs are only eight percent of the total cost of running a system.
And not only that—outdated IT choices result in higher manual processing costs, while also making it difficult to offer the always on, personalised omnichannel experience that customers are now demanding. This results in:
- Lost sales. If you do not track who your customers are, what they are buying and how often they are coming back, you are missing golden opportunities. Personalised marketing that uses existing customer data and creates targeted marketing that meets your customers where they are at will see them returning again and again.
- Missed profits. Want to know the easiest way to make more money? Upsell to the customers you already have. Your existing customers are an untapped pool of data that can tell you what they want to buy, how they love to shop, what else they are buying, as well as what they want to buy next. Savvy businesses know that data is king when it comes to targeted marketing, building brand loyalty and increasing profits.
- Departing customers. How do you know if your customers are happy? Do you have the data to assess the purchasing value of your customers, what questions are they asking and how many times do they return to buy from you? Frustrated customers will not keep coming back. If your systems are not offering the responsiveness and omnichannel support and functionality they have come to expect, they will shop around for somewhere that does.
- Low employee engagement. Disparate systems can affect employee experience due to the lack of understanding of disconnected processes and the length of time it takes to perform simple tasks.
- Non-compliance. Government authorities including AUSTRAC and APRA have signalled that they are focusing on organisations with ageing legacy systems. There needs to be more visibility across all employee and customer touch points to ensure all customer interactions meet compliance standards. The only way to have this visibility is via cloud-based technology which can talk to all applications in real time to provide a complete audit trail and accurate reporting.
So, will a new approach to CXM save you time and money? In a word, yes. And here is why.
The new wave of CXM technology is a game changer. Not only is it adaptable and flexible, allowing you to scale easily thanks to the digital processes, but it lets you bring together and automate existing business systems across multiple departments for a seamless customer experience. Moreover, it gives customers greater access to their own information in real time, reducing the impact on customer service channels while providing a positive experience at every interaction.
So, what should you consider in your approach? One of the most important factors to remember is that you are not exchanging like for like. Migrating to a new CXM platform is not just a digital version of your existing processes and a CRM. Moving to a streamlined, automated platform gives you a thriving and adaptable system that will not only replace those inefficient manual processes with workflow automation, it will overhaul the customer journey from the outside in, using data to create customer experiences that will keep them coming back.
When it becomes a CXM platform, look for:
- Personalisation. The ability to access real time data about your customers is essential to creating offers that they need. McKinsey estimates that personalised marketing can cut customer acquisition costs by as much as 50%. From getting in touch before their renewals are due (before they start shopping around), to identifying gaps in their insurance cover—personalisation will give you the crucial insights required to track and retain your customers.
- Seamless experiences. Today’s customers expect seamless digital experiences that move them smoothly through the process and give them a consistent experience no matter how they interact. Integrated CX and business systems are essential to not only creating easy access, but necessary to provide the decision-making data you need to track customer journeys.
- Trust. With so much personal data being collected and stored—trust and security are major concerns for consumers. Older software and legacy systems are vulnerable to security breaches and often struggle to keep up with security updates. Security breaches are also high on the agenda for CIO’s, with 47% of CIO’s noting that security was a number one investment priority.
- Self-service. Self-service is going to continue to be a driver for quality customer experiences. Customers want access to their information in real time and the ability to problem solve as they go. Building conversational interfaces and capabilities for multi-device access are becoming important for those who increasingly do not want to pick up the phone.
- Real time. Customers want real time interactions that save them time, and they are no longer willing to be restricted to office hours to get help. Legacy infrastructure lacks the architecture to synchronise customer data in real time because it typically stores and updates customer data in multiple databases across multiple systems and relies on someone being there to answer the phone or reply to an email.
Poor customer experiences are costing you money. From frustrated employees who struggle with outdated systems that cannot cope with demands, to the missed opportunities of tailored marketing and essential communication with your customers—it is a cost few businesses can afford to sustain.
When opportunity knocks, you need to respond quickly and effectively. A state-of-the-art CXM platform can give your business the edge needed to scale, grow and adapt to whatever the future may bring for your business.