Technology Alone Won’t Solve your CX Problem!

 

Technology Alone Won’t Solve your CX Problem!

 

As a Customer Experience Research and Consultancy firm, CX
Solutions (formerly TARP), has seen a lot in our 40+ years of operation. We
were the first to equate a good CX experience to positive ROI…believe it or
not, this was before the internet and online surveys even existed! My how
things have changed!

And yet the basic principles haven’t changed. Still today,
research shows that the Customer Experience matters – it matters for word of
mouth, it matters for loyalty, and it matters in order to drive profit. What
has changed is the technology and methods available for collecting customer
feedback that is used to improve the customer experience. With the introduction
of companies like Qualtrics and Medallia into the CX space, organizations have
customer insights at their fingertips! These new technologies allow you to
survey and interact with your customer at any and all touchpoints and in the
channel they prefer. You can now collect any and all the data that you need
easily and view results in almost real time.  You now know how your customers
viewed their recent experiences, and can course correct sooner (although not
all companies do).

So what’s the problem? It’s not a problem for many
companies. In fact, I’m sure many of you either work for a company or have seen
the success stories of companies who have instituted full scale and effective
CX programs using the new technology. These companies utilize the results
effectively to manage their business.

On the flip side, however, there are companies that “buy
in” to the technology (literally and figuratively), but watch their performance
remain steady (or even decline). These companies fall in to the trap of
thinking the technology alone will solve their problems – more data, faster
data, data data data!!! Now that we know what all of our customers think
immediately and at every touchpoint our scores will increase. WRONG!

Problems with this thinking:

1.      More
data does not equate to better data or more actionable data. Your survey might
be short and you have a high response rate but does it provide you with the
insights you need to manage your business? In many cases the answer is NO.
Companies come to us with this dilemma all the time.

2.      Companies are so overwhelmed by the plethora of data and
the frequency of data, that they often can’t use the insights effectively. In
essence, they are swimming in data and chasing a moving target. Companies need
a system in place to continuously level set to understand where they are (at a
given point), to analyze what the data means, set priorities, and identify
actions that will have the greatest impact on customer loyalty and revenue.
This critical step – ACTIONING on the plethora of data – is often missed.

Don’t collect data just to collect data – do something with
it!

3.      Companies
are not set up structurally to action the data. To utilize the results for
change you need a process in place to insure the data is continuously monitored
and actions. Do you have weekly meetings to review results? Do you utilize
results in corporate scorecards and/or incentive programs? Does your company
have a

Customer Experience Council (CEC)? (Teaser – keep an eye
out for future blog on CEC’s)

4.
Too much attention is placed on the mechanics of the new
technology and process – that people lose sight of their day to day operations
and focus on the technology implementation over servicing their customers.

As CX practitioners, we are lucky to have all of these
tools and insights at our fingertips. But you must make sure the technology is
viewed as a tool – a GREAT tool – and not the solution in and of itself.

If you have recently implemented new CX technology and find
yourself experiencing some of these issues you are not alone! Stay tuned for
future blog posts and whitepapers about how to overcome these (and many more)
common pitfalls.

Christine Mazur

VP, Customer Experience & Research Services

Note: CX
Solutions is a CX Research and Consultancy firm and is also an official
professional services partner of both Qualtrics and Medallia, where we assist
companies with program design, Customer Journey Mapping, engagement and
communication strategies as part of the launch of new programs, implementation
of the new technology, and ongoing management and consultative assistance in
terms of auctioning the results.  For more information and to find out how we
can help, please view our website
www.cxsolutions.com or contact us at (703) 524-1456.