Six Areas Critical to Customer Experience and Business Performance.

The Institute of Customer Experience’s latest research highlights areas for organisations to develop their service strategies whilst protecting business performance.

In 2022, organisations need to develop service strategies that are responsive to evolving customer needs but also protect short and long term business performance.

The UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UK CSI) is a national benchmark of customer satisfaction based on 45,000 customer responses.

Below are some key recommendations for areas of focus identified for the next 6 months:

1. Make a personal connection and respond to individual customer needs
2. Deliver efficiency in key transactions and interactions
3. Develop strategies to prevent problems from occurring
4. Maintain focus on problem and complaint handling
5. Invest in developing the skills, capabilities, and behaviours for excellent service
6. A sustained commitment to customer service

Make a personal connection and respond to individual customer needs

"Maintaining a personal connection with customers will be central to customer satisfaction and well-being in the next year."  [UK CSI]

• Demonstrate empathy and emotional intelligence in interactions with customers and colleagues.
• Give relevant, practical advice to help customers get the most from products and services. Proactively communicate relevant information and advice to support wellbeing.
• Enable employees to access key information about a customer’s previous interactions or product usage, so they can offer informed, personal service.
• Respond to customers’ channel preference for different types of contact and experience. Invite feedback from customers and communicate about actions taken as a result of that feedback.
• Encourage employees delivering service or designing customer experiences to consider the expectations and needs of diverse customers.

Deliver efficiency in key transactions and interactions

"35% of customers indicated that they would be prepared to pay more to guarantee excellent service." [UK CSI]

• Measure and benchmark the number of customer experiences that are right first time
• Deliver consistency in quality and performance of products and services
• Identify problems quickly and put in place actions to address them
• Make it easy to access accurate information and advice, whichever channel a customer chooses to use
• Ensure invoicing or billing is accurate and complete
• Review resilience of operations and supply chains, identify potential risks and contingency
• Ensure all service channels are appropriately resourced
• Measure the effectiveness and consistency of the customer experience across all key touchpoints and channels.

"Average levels of satisfaction for experiences in all channels are higher than a year ago except for over the phone and in writing." [UK CSI]

Develop strategies to prevent problems from occurring

"17.3% of customers experienced a problem with an organisation, the highest level ever recorded by the UKCSI." [UK CSI]

• Benchmark and measure the number of experiences that are right first time, from the customers’ perspective
• Conduct root cause analysis on the causes of complaints
• Review and map customer journeys to identify pain points and opportunities to improve
• Develop short and long-term strategies to prevent problems, especially those that significantly damage customer satisfaction
• Continuously review resilience of supply chains, operations and infrastructure and identify potential risks and contingency
• Develop capabilities and processes that promote innovation and agility
  
  

Maintain focus on problems and complaint handling

"The biggest gap between the top performers and the others are for complaint handling measures and the number of experiences rated as being right first time." [UK CSI]

• Provide straightforward ways to complain through all available channels
• Set standards for complaint handling including behaviours, expectations about time to resolve, ownership and empowerment, keeping customers informed until the complaint is resolved, when to escalate a complaint
• Focus on developing first point of contact behaviours that are empathetic and helpful
• Resolve complaints as quickly as possible
• Ensure there is clear accountability for resolving complaints
• Equip employees with appropriate skills and knowledge to manage complaints effectively and consistently
• Make sure there is an escalation point / process if customers do not accept the outcome of the complaint
• Follow up complaints to check they have been resolved from the customer’s perspective
• Conduct root cause analysis, based on customer feedback, into the causes of complaints Develop strategic programmes to address causes of complaints and prevent them from occurring
  

Invest in developing the skills, capabilities, and behaviours for excellent service.

"The leading issues customers want organisations to improve are developing more helpful, friendly, knowledgeable staff, making it easier to contact the right person and better website navigation." [UK CSI]

Many customers have heightened expectations surrounding digital customer experiences alongside the desire for a real human connection, especially for complex or sensitive issues. Skills shortages and recruitment challenges mean that the imperative to train and develop employees has become even more critical to customer satisfaction and business performance.

Investing in the following skills will be central to the customer experience:

• Empathy, emotional intelligence and the ability to make a personal connection
• Enhanced communication and relationship management skills
• Problem solving, managing complaints and complex issues
• Ability to use digital tools effectively and coach customers to use digital tools and applications
• Design of digital applications that enable better customer experiences
• Design of customer experience journeys in an omnichannel context
• Ability to interact with customers across different channels

A sustained commitment to customer service

"Over 40% of customers will attach greater importance to ease, simplicity, responsiveness and quality of customer service, being able to interact with an organisation in a convenient way." [UK CSI]

• Define clear customer service objectives and ensure they are communicated across the organisation
• Set clear accountability for customer service, with specific customer objectives and incentives for leaders across the organisation
• Measure, benchmark and report on customer satisfaction across key elements of the customer experience
• Use customer insight to inform strategy development
• Ensure there is customer service experience in the boardroom.

Other important factors for success:

The UK CSI also highlighted an additional four factors it maintains are essential for organisations looking to develop customer experience and business performance over the next 6 months.

• Enable customers to make environmentally sustainable choices
• Demonstrate local relevance and engagement
• Understand and respond to the impact of the cost of living crisis on your employees and customers
• Demonstrate transparence, ethical governance and practice

About the UK CSI: 

The UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UK CSI) is a national benchmark of customer satisfaction based on 45,000 customer responses.

The UK CSI is published twice a year and has run for 14 years. The report covers 13 sectors, 11 in the private sector alongside the local and national public sectors. The July 2022 UK CSI includes 45,000 unique responses from over 10,000 customers, with an average of 3,000 responses per sector (except for Transport and Utilities which have 6,000 responses).

You can download your own copy of the UK CSI report from The Institute of Customer Service.