Not really! Having worked with more than 100 brands on their journey to excel in delivering customer service, we realize that the talent and skill-set of the person ‘helping deliver’ that resolution to a problem or engaging in a conversation with empathy, makes ALL the difference.
What’s different about ‘that’ person then? Aren’t people in those roles trained to read from scripts and leverage automation to document and resolve, as a process?
Two decades ago, when CX meant maintaining a transactional customer service center to meet pre-defined service-level agreements, this could have been true. But in today’s VUCA world, with rising customer expectations for quick, easy and hassle-free experience, CX talent requirements have transcended to encompass broader, strategic roles such as a Digital CX consultant.
A Digital CX consultant is a knowledge worker (as opposed to a transactional worker), an experience orchestrator and a customer subject matter expert. These consultants work seamlessly across back, middle and front-office to curate personalized experiences. A key trait for such a consultant is ‘customer obsession’ which means going beyond regular key performance indicators to look at customer performance indicators (lifetime value, yield per customer, and net promoter score / CX scores).
When Jake, a Digital CX consultant, interacts on chat with an angry (sentiment analytics) customer Elsa on why her health insurance application hasn’t been accepted yet, he tries to calm Elsa (empathy) while looking up the details on his screen (multi-tasking). Elsa has been a customer for the company’s term insurance product for the past 10 years (insights) and the delay is due to the absence of medical test results that are awaited on the same day (personalization). Jake requests Elsa to wait a couple of hours for an update on her application (real-time dashboard). She receives an e-mail with the approved application (resolution).
Given the evolving nature of the job, structured learning interventions are required to upskill Digital CX consultants. Game-based and simulation-led training sessions are key for skill enhancement and future-readiness.
While a lot has been mentioned about the person, let me also add that access to the right tools and technology also add dramatically to the differentiation. We have seen examples of how we could enhance customer experience 3X with real-time video support and augmented visual resolution! But that’s a story for another time.