A webinar with Alchemer CEO, David Roberts, and VP of Customer Success, Ryan Tamminga
On December 16, 2020, Alchemer CEO, David Roberts, and VP of Customer Success, Ryan Tamminga, sat down with Jeannie Zaemes, Director of Growth Marketing, to discuss their predictions for how customer experience will change in 2021.
What follows is a summary of the main points, but for the full story you’ll want to watch the webinar.
Trend 1: We believe that customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines
Here David and Ryan talked about how organizations will move to a more centralized customer experience, yet expand to every department as customers touch more parts of the business. Customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines, as they are the people who can close the loop with the customer. This helps people feel that they are heard and encourages them to participate in your Voice of the Customer programs.
Trend 2: We believe that digital transformation efforts will accelerate dramatically. In many instances, customers can no longer engage with a company face–to–face
During the pandemic, customers have lost immediate face-to-face interaction, such as going to the mall to shop or flying to meet a business-to-business customer. How do you create trust and intimacy without the face-to-face experience? Your website is now your storefront for your business. Companies that are thriving today are those that have successfully embraced digital transformation to do business digitally, even though the experience is different.
Trend 3: We predict that the sophistication of CX will skyrocket
As a result of the pandemic, there will be a new wave of automation at the customer level that will eliminate background activities and give more time to customer-facing teams to engage directly with their customers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will help automate background activities, and organizations will need to apply higher-level skillsets to better engage customers to build hyper-personalized experiences.
Trend 4: We predict that some companies will over-rotate toward automation
In the rush to embrace digital transformation, it’s easy to go too far. Automating background activities is a good thing to do as it frees up people to spend more time with customers. We believe that it’s possible to automate too many customer-facing interactions. Companies will need to guard against further separating themselves from the few remaining personal interactions that the global pandemic permits. Use automation to allow for more personal customer engagements, not to replace to them.
Trend 5: Employee experience will be just as critical as customer experience
It’s easy to be isolated and transactional with everybody working remotely. Being able to engage your employees in the same ways you engage your customers helps you retain your best people and maintain your corporate culture. Keeping a pulse on your employees allows you keep your employees engaged and passionate about their work and company. It’s hard right now, but the more you work to keep that engagement and passion high, the more your customers will enjoy their experiences with your company.
Hear more from David and Ryan
While we have covered a lot here, the webinar offers even more, including more than ten minutes of questions and answers with David and Ryan. To watch the webinar, click here and sign in. You will also find other webinars about NPS, Employee Experience, and Risk Assessments.