What’s the Secret to Great CX?

Jennifer Rubin is a CX expert and a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) with over 19 years of experience assisting companies in creating, launching, and evaluating customer/employee experience programs. Rubin told me, today, she spends a lot of time with clients and sees the obstacles they face. She also sees the positive business impacts CX teams have on companies like improved customer loyalty, organizational growth, and reduced cost savings.

As Associate Practices Lead at MaritzCX, Rubin said she’s noticed a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. That trend is rising customer expectations. To Rubin, meeting customer demands boils down to delivering a consistent experience, regardless of which communication channel you use. She said the speed of your response matters and stressed the importance of responding faster to meet customer expectations.

“A good guideline to establishing goals for responsiveness is to assess customer expectations for your industry and set a goal to have faster response times.”

Another rule to follow, according to Rubin, is to keep responses personal. She noted call center agents should use first names during interactions, which yields a better experience as she put it. Likely the most essential piece of the puzzle is a call center’s bloodline – agents. She offered some words of wisdom on this topic stating it is key to ‘provide ongoing training to foster a culture of customer empathy and ownership.’ She also said it is paramount to listen to employees.

Offering a final piece of advice to contact center managers – Rubin said they should leverage CX feedback because it is a great way to coach and look for systemic opportunities to improve.

Building Long-Term Relationships

Building lasting customer relationships, creating more loyal customers, and ensuring great experiences can happen if call/contact center managers create a customer-centric environment, according to Rubin. She further shared, contact centers should integrate data from CRMs and call recordings to deliver deeper insight. The problem, as laid out by Rubin, is that many businesses say they are customer-centric, but they aren’t because they have CX programs and feedback they don’t leverage.

“You will see success when you use feedback, CRM information, and operational data to paint a holistic picture of customers for your entire organization”

From our conversation, it was clear she understands agents should take action based on customer feedback as she said tools such as text/speech analytics, action planning, implementing a double closed-loop system, and segmenting customers can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of customer follow-up.

Stronger Customer Relationships with AI

Jen Rubin

Artificial Intelligence in the context of CX enhances the experience through IVR, Chatbots, speech analytics, and other features. Contact centers can use these data to take real-time and future action when they experience upset customers, someone asks for a manager, or an employee receives praise for providing excellent CX.

“AI helps contact centers move from a reactive approach to a proactive response to customer needs, making it easier for customers to do business, and even plays a role in strengthening loyalty.”