You might look at some other companies with envy, the kind of companies that customers love – which create buzz and are referenced by impressed CX professionals.
Yet your own company could be the kind that others look up to when it comes to offering the best in Customer Experience. At CXB Hub, we look to what we call the ‘ABCs of Customer Excellence’.
The four As in benchmarking
A for Apple: The famous tech firm, which gave the world the iPhone and other iconic gadgets, has raised the standard of collaborative, premium, community Customer Experience.
A for Amazon: The champion of e-commerce. Founder Jeff Bezos earned his customer reputation due to his incredible efficiency in logistics and large-scale algorithms which push marketing info to the consumer to advise them on other purchases they may like. Another ‘A’ would be Alibaba, the Chinese answer to Amazon, which gives its western rival a real run for its money.
A for Accorhotels: Hospitality is a great source of inspiration for any industry wishing to deliver better Customer Experience, and who knows hospitality better than this famous French hotel booking firm.
The four Bs of your business model
‘B’ in this case stands for ‘brain’, and these are the four brains you need to consider when improving your brand’s CX.
The Customer Brain: When deciding on your business model, you should be clear on the level of self-care you want for your customers and ensure that you listen to his/her needs.
The Customer-Facing Employee Brain: Everyone in the company should have those employees as a top priority, and ensure they get the best information, the best training, and the best tools to deliver the greatest service possible.
The Back Office Employee Brain: Teach them about what is important for customer-facing employees to deliver the right experience. Tell them about customer insights and share some real experience, so that they focus on the wellbeing and performance of the customer-facing employees.
The Hard and Software Brain: Ensure that you have the right amount of digital tools aligned with your exact business model, with the aim of making things simplified for the customer.
The four Cs of your customer service excellence programme
Customer and Employee Voice: This is a must. Do not act before analysing the situation properly because your resources are limited; this helps with successfully prioritising.
Co-Design and Collaboration: Design your services with customers and employees, and then innovate in the kind of collaboration activities you need.
Culture and Communication: This is about service delivery. If there are more than 25 people in a single office, you run the risk of discrepancy between the brand identity and service business model, and the real company culture. Work on your brand identity and your cultural traits. Train and communicate on how to deliver the experience consistent with your brand.
Calculation of the Impact: Carefully choose a few KPIs that will make you understand whether you have an impact externally (customer satisfaction and sales) and internally (employee engagement and performance).