“Delivering programs, products, and services with a customer-first mindset is more important than ever, and a key part of this is ensuring customers receive the experiences they desire while frontline employees are enabled with the tools and systems to quickly and easily understand and take action on what matters most to customers,” she said.
The interactions tending to leave an impression on Australians are those involving frontline customer service representatives. Analysis of qualitative feedback shows helpful and courteous services and knowledgeable representatives are the top reasons why consumers recommend a company. In contrast, lack of knowledge and rude staff are the top two reasons someone would complain about the organisation.
The Customer Experience Edge: Australia report highlights three areas to prioritise when improving the customer experience:
- Empathy at the frontline – Organisations should focus on selection, onboarding, and skilling to set frontline team members up for success, and when designing experiences, identify and focus on the moments and scenarios requiring empathy. Frontline employees must be enabled to clearly articulate the outcomes customers are focused on and empowered to solve issues.
- Agency at the frontline – Enabling employees to provide accurate advice, solve issues and anticipate needs and issues is imperative. Central to this is ensuring frontline employees can identify and resolve common service and service recovery tasks.
- Digital self-serve – Digital edge customers expect interaction convenience in the channels of their choice. The leading organisations will look at common service tasks that can be delivered through self-serve and ensure the customer can be engaged in their desired way.
