Bust Information Silos to Improve the Customer Experience
The customer experience (CX) — or the measurement of a customer’s ongoing relationship with a brand — has emerged as a top priority for businesses today. In fact, according to one study, 71 percent of organizations now understand the importance of CX.
The bad news, though, is that only 13 percent of companies would rate their CX delivery as a 9 out of 10 or higher — meaning there is still a great deal of work to be done in this area.
Why are businesses having trouble creating strong customer experiences? As it turns out, the problem has less to do with agent execution and more to do with backend communication. Many businesses today are siloing information, instead of sharing it through the enterprise.
Oftentimes, this happens inside of organizations that are using a mix of cloud-based, legacy and proprietary management technologies. In any given business, for instance, a marketing department could be using a cutting-edge automation platform that pulls information from various sources and consolidates it into a single application. Sales, on the other hand, could still be using spreadsheets or a purpose-built platform. And the C-suite may not have access to either system, leaving executives in the dark.
Suffice to say, some big problems can arise in this type of fragmented communications environment:
Disorganization: Customers today expect seamless experiences from contact centers. Customers should never have to bring agents up to speed about recent issues they have been having, or repeat themselves about in-call preferences. But in order for this to happen, information needs to flow from point to point across the enterprise. Otherwise, experiences may vary greatly between each department. To a customer, there’s nothing more frustrating than having a great experience with billing, but an awful experience with technical support.
Missed opportunities: Small data points can ultimately lead to much larger opportunities in customer service. For instance, a customer may download an asset from a website indicating that he or she is interested in a particular product or solution. This data needs to make it into the hands of sales and marketing associates in order to be of any use. But in order for this to happen, basic communication needs to take place.
Poor planning: It’s one thing to miss something like a sale due to a lack of communication. But it becomes a much larger issue when planning and executing a larger sales and marketing campaigns. All departments must work together and share relevant data to identify key trends and plot a strong course.
Here at InfoCision, we take communication very seriously. Our teams of highly-trained professionals work closely together to share important data, review progress and overcome obstacles.
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