OREANDA-NEWS. September 06, 2016. “Delivering a superior customer experience is critical for organizations across industries amid heightened consumer expectations,” says Euan Davis. “Therefore, retailers and banks, for example, are continuing to innovate and introduce new online and in-store or in-branch technologies ? such as beacons and location-based services ? to improve their customer experience. Nevertheless, there are certain strategies that help organizations deliver memorable customer experiences that enable their business to grow.” Excerpts:

“Organizations need to redefine their processes to drive proactive support, whether responding to potential escalations via social media or identifying opportunities to improve the product line. It is also essential to tie predictive and prescriptive analytics to service and support processes.

To make the most of customer interactions through multiple channels and deliver a uniform experience, organizations need to create a unified view of their customers. Having a common system of record is foundational, which can be achieved in multiple ways, from using existing CRM systems to moving to a cloud?based, multi?channel solution.

Organizations should look to create unique customer data models that combine internal CRM and support data from social platforms to create specific service scenarios that help customer service anticipate and serve customers’ needs.

Customers crave ‘moments of magic’, those unexpected interactions that leave them feeling valued. Customer support needs to plan for such qualitative moments as meticulously as it does for quantitative metrics. Smaller, qualitative gestures leave impressions on customers that are even more lasting.

Converting customer support into an insight generator requires rethinking the support function and shifting focus from a reactive to interactive stance. To get there, organizations must take two distinct steps: Identify the functional, operational and cultural changes needed to create a more interactive support function and determine the process mechanisms and supporting technologies to listen more carefully to customers.

To deliver positive and memorable experiences, customer support needs its own positive employee experiences to inform their approach. Organizations should look at ways to increase employee autonomy and flexibility.

While companies should take advantage of digital technologies and approaches to recast customer support as a front-office function, they should go beyond metrics and define how the organization can create, deliver and reward moments of magic.”