Growing the best Customer Experience Team

What truly makes for a good experience? According to the latest PwC report it’s Speed. Convenience. Consistency. Friendliness. And one big connector: human touch—that is, creating real connections by making technology feel more human and giving employees what they need to create better customer experiences. Source: PwC customer experience is everything report[1].

Building a customer experience team is a must have in today’s fast paced digital world.  Irrespective of sector, business size or whether you are B2C or B2B.

What is customer experience?

If you interact with customers, you are creating a customer experience.  The Harvard Business Review describe it as‘the sum-totality of how customers engage with your company and brand, not just in a snapshot in time, but throughout the entire arc of being a customer’[2]. It is all the interactions the customer has with you across a range of environments and platforms, the journey they go on and their view of your company throughout that.

According to PwC’s most recent survey on Customer experience, the price premium for getting it right is real and it’s big – ‘up to a 16% price premium on products and services, plus increased loyalty’1.

5 things to consider when recruiting your customer experience team. Do they?

Have the ability to facilitate multi channel insights

Within the team there must be that individual who loves everything data.  They have a hunger to take data from multiple sources and make sense of it for the business.  I call this applying the ‘so what’.  What is the data telling us. What should we be doing more of, less of?

Ability to create ownership across the business

Strong communication skills are key.  Building buy-in across the business for creating a great customer experience is a must. Someone within the team needs to focus on developing these relationships.  One of our clients has regular weekly meetings where representatives from across the business (the change makers) come together to discuss progress.  All are held accountable for the customer experience. Building relationships and creating a customer focused culture with a common goal is vital.

Clear understanding of the customer journey

From the outset, it’s important to understand the ‘journey’s’ your various customers go on when interacting with you.  It works well to build ‘personas’ of your various customer types.  This helps you to really understand who they are, why they buy and how best to provide them with an experience that means they come back time and time again.

Understanding both on and offline experience of the customer (how and when does your customer interact with the business)

The team need to understand that the experience the customer has will involve a blend of on and offline.  Just focusing on the digital experience means that when a customer can’t get what they need online, they are likely to call your business.  If you have created an experience that forces the customer to have most of their interaction with you online, you need to be damn sure that by the time they have to phone you, your call centre staff are well trained and go out of their way to be pro-active in solving any issues your customer may have. It is about creating an omnichannel customer experience.  Advances in technology has enabled us to serve our customers more effectively online but customers are experiencing a disconnect.  According to PwC, 82% of US and 74% of non-US consumers want more human interaction1.

Ability to drive customer advocacy

Having a customer mind-set is a must.  When interviewing individuals it must be clear that they see the world through their customers eyes.  Always thinking ‘what would the customer experience’ not what does the business experience.  We have interviewed many individuals for customer experience roles and it is clear very quickly whether this is their mindset and naturally how they view the world.

Create the right employee experience and the customer experience will follow.  Only 38% of US consumers and 46% of consumers outside the US state that the employees they interact with understand their needs.  Furthermore, PwC cite that 59% of all consumers feel companies have lost touch with the human element of customer experience1.  So the question is: Are your customer experience teams up to the task? / do you know what your customer experience is?

To speak to us about your customer experience recruitment needs, contact us on 0203 034 0420 or email nici@talentgateway.net

[1]Experience is everything: Here’s how to get it right, PwC, 2018, https://www.pwc.com/us/en/advisory-services/publications/consumer-intelligence-series/pwc-consumer-intelligence-series-customer-experience.pdf

[2]Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2010/10/understanding-customer-experie