We are living in the age of consumerization. Long gone are the days when brands are able to generically outsource customer care support to low value, low cost, “business processing” agencies who focus on basic performance metric such as handle time and staffing attainment. Today’s market has ushered in the emergence of Customer Experience Providers (CXPs), outsourcing partners designed to provide dynamic experience-based outcomes using modernly adapted support solutions.
Gone are the days of outsourcing precious brand experiences to agencies that hire the lowest cost, least experienced agents in locations where the connection between “the brand” and “the agent” are non-existent.
Customers Want Your Undivided Attention
Prioritizing treating every customer authentically and providing them the solutions they require with patience, is the only way to win them over and one of the best ways to achieve brand loyalty. Because of the competitive nature of today’s businesses, one simple misstep can easily cost you a customer.
So, having a deliberate plan to win valuable customers over is a must. If you take a close look at all the successful brands from different parts of the world, you will discover that they have finally embraced remote-based, flexible, support models. These models provide them an opportunity to let experienced brand ambassadors interact with their customers – “customers serving customers” Sounds good, doesn’t it?
When you think about it, the old model of customer care cannot work in today’s fast-moving and efficient world. In the old model, most companies used to hire entry-level talent to provide transactional call center services. It did little to improve any customers brand affinity and often served to worsen the reputation of the brand they were representing. After all, what else could one expect from an from a well-intentioned but inexperienced customer care agent?
Why a Change of Strategy is Important for Brands to Improve
There is no secret that customers expect nothing but the best from their favorite brands, which is why they also assume that a brand will understand their specific needs. Sadly, however, this is not the case if your brand does not have the right customer support strategy. All it does is cause new and loyal customers to run away, which undoes all the hard work brands undertake to create, build and protect their brand image. And to make things worse, churn and low customer loyalty have a profound impact on shareholder value.
You might be wondering what the necessary steps are to improve your brands Customer Experience and believe me there are no shortage of opinions to be found online. Well, the answer is quite simple. Enhance and evolve your customer support strategy. Older customer support models are simply not enough to keep businesses afloat. They are too detached, too transactional and classically fit for an era described by many brands as “your mess for less” which has no place in today’s market.
So what is the new strategy you ask? Having a socially conscious workforce would be a good place to start. But the problem is that hiring top-notch agents or ambassadors can get extremely difficult. Identifying them is extremely tough, and the process of hiring and training them is tiresome as well. It also drains your company’s bank account to make matters worse.
Luckily, there is a solution: Go Remote-Based, Go Virtual, Go the way of a new era Customer Experience Provider of outsourced solutions.
Important Steps Brands are Taking to Improve Customer Experience
Although brands take several steps to improve the experience of their customers, mentioned below are some important steps that are bound to bring positive results.
Geographically Disbursed Is Good For You
It is extremely rare to find all the talent you want from a particular location, think “best of the best vs. best of the available”. Limiting your talent pool to a particular area of a specific city will only yield undesired outcomes because you will never have top-level talent stacked in such a tight place. Therefore, extending your radius to get only the most qualified ambassadors to represent your brand would be a wise choice. It will increase the volume of quality and provide your brand with much-needed flexibility that customers will highly appreciate.
Agents to Ambassadors
If customer experience is an important element of your growth strategy, elevate the experience of the brand ambassador. Agents or representatives, these are titles used many moons ago and are a sure sign that the agency supporting your brand is providing you with a less than evolved service. Ambassadors represent your brand and should have the right status within your business, that starts with having the right title for the valuable work they perform.
Never Settling For Less
Just because you have endured the classic approach to outsourcing doesn’t mean that you have to, going forward. Today’s Customer Experience Providers offer a wider range of experiences-based solutions, often all included in their productive hourly rate. As with many emerging technologies and solutions, it’s rarely the legacy providers who are attempting to disrupt the status quo, keep this in mind when exploring value added partnerships.
Remote Based Offers More, Much More Than the Alternative
Let’s keep this one simple – life experienced professionals who value life-balance are increasingly opting for careers that allow them to work remotely. The magnitude of the population seeking modern day balance is higher than at any other time in our history and working remotely is a key enabling factor.
With remote-based Ambassadors you achieve superior outcomes in every measurable category:
- Higher productivity
- Lower turnover and absenteeism
- Access to more talent, in more places!
- Superior Customer Experience
- More of things brands expect, less of the things they dislike.
Bottom Line
Consumerization has propelled Customer Experience to the forefront of the value chain. Brands who have historically partnered with outsourcers for valued based solutions, now require experience-based solutions and many BPOs are struggling to retool their business models. The evolution of the outsourcing industry has given birth to highly adapted, cloud based, eco-system enabled Customer Experience Providers that are positioned to provide brands with authentic brand experiences – CX that was only previously available to the largest of brand.
The New Era of Better Customer Experience is here and available to everyone!