The Data-driven Advantage that can Transform your Customer Experience
Customer experience has become the defining factor in business success. As trailblazing organisations deliver better customer experiences, the baseline expectations for all businesses rise – and those who fall behind risk losing their customers. In order to meet the new bar and excel in the future, it’s critical to elevate your customer experience through continual digital transformation.
The evolution of customer experience
Customer service requirements have evolved substantially over recent years. In times past, a responsive phone line or a functioning and informative website was enough to satisfy most customers, but the underlying technology that powers customer experience has raised the bar on customer expectations. The rise of business social media integrations, eCommerce, and recent development in AI have all helped to contribute to improved customer interactions, which has in turn applied more pressure on businesses to deliver the desired experience.
In order to meet these growing expectations, organisations must now deliver rapid responses to customer enquiries across multiple contact channels, including phone, email, and social media – all wrapped in a personalised service that ensures customers feel valued.
The ripple effect of this has been felt across the market - 76% of businesses have identified personalised customer engagement as a top priority. But how can these meaningful interactions be delivered at scale to ensure a great customer experience without hampering the rest of your business?
Data management: the foundation of excellence
The answer lies in developing a comprehensive data strategy, embracing digital transformation to lay the foundations for future customer experiences. All too often, organisations over-invest in customer-focused solutions without streamlining their approach to data first, creating data siloes that each hold disparate pieces of information. Stored and managed in isolation, this data cannot be used to its full potential and cannot elevate the customer experience in the way that is desired.
Effective data management requires the systematic collection and integration of first-party customer information across every touchpoint. This includes tracking interactions across digital platforms, maintaining accurate purchase histories, and consolidating support engagements. A unified data pool makes it easy to identify patterns in customer behaviour, address potential service gaps, and deliver consistently excellent experiences.
For your customers, this results in a massive improvement in service quality. High-friction interactions, such as waiting on hold while an agent tries to find their information or collaborate with colleagues, are minimised, if not eliminated entirely.
76%
of businesses have identified personalised customer engagement as a top priority
Building this data processing architecture also improves the experience of any customer service staff in your business, who can quickly identify individuals they’re speaking to, and access purchase histories, past support tickets, or any other useful information in seconds. This eliminates the burden on customers to find this information during the process of a call, removing the discomfort of having to search an email inbox while a contact centre agent waits on the line.
This all contributes to a more seamless, better connected and ultimately more personalised experience that leaves the customer with the impression that the organisation is genuinely in touch with them and ready to assist with their request or enquiry.
Of course, any data system needs to ensure full compliance with relevant data protection regulations and ensure customer data is secured from potential cyberattacks as a first priority. To avoid unnecessary risk, consider the ideal customer experience you want to deliver, and only collect data that is directly in service of that level of personalisation.
Automation and AI: scaling great experiences
With robust data management in place, the foundations are laid for automations, which build upon your data processing architecture to enhance customer experience even further. Solutions like chatbots and intelligent self-service apps give customers the information they need at the right time without requiring human intervention, enhancing their experience while making life easier for your own personnel.
Chatbots have seen widespread adoption by businesses for years, but they’re often held back by poor data processing and subsequently feel like a glorified FAQ library rather than an intelligent, self-service tool. However, when built on a robust data architecture, using tools like Microsoft Copilot Studio, chatbots elevate customer experience to new heights. Customers need only provide a few details, and the chatbot can surface help pages related to their recent purchases, speed up refunds, and generally allow customers to self-serve whenever they need support. For example, AI agents developed in Copilot Studio can connect to a huge range of business data sources to build customer profiles and personalise interactions.
These AI agents and other intelligent self-service solutions can also be deployed through automated phone lines or social media channels, giving customers the ability to seek support where they are, rather than requiring them to visit a website for help. Intelligent Voice Response (IVR) solutions, for example, can help route customers through a contact centre automatically, rather than needing them to wait on hold while their enquiry is passed from agent to agent. As such, deploying these automations elevate customer experience even further, creating a multi-channel support infrastructure that carries the same capacity for personalisation and reduces friction, wherever it’s deployed.
When robust data processing and intelligent automation work in concert, remarkable improvements in customer experience are bound to follow. Importantly, this also helps lay the groundwork for even further digital transformation. For example, business AI solutions can be given access to the customer data pipeline to personalise individual responses quickly, or just to better understand customer trends for the benefit of the organisation as a whole.
Building future-ready customer experiences
Digital transformation isn’t a one-time process – especially not when driving improvements to customer experience. The bar is always being raised by exceptional businesses, but with robust foundations laid and a strategy for future customer experience excellence defined, it’s easy to keep your organisation ahead of the curve.
Data is a concept that unites the entirety of FluidOne’s Connected Cloud. For our customers, it often acts as a central foundation to support future projects across cloud, collaboration, and cyber security. We act as a single partner for delivering great customer experience through your IT. If you’re ready to get started, reach out to the team today, and discover how we can help you capture the full value of digital transformation.
