Australians consumers are calling on organisations to bring an improved “human touch” to their customer experience.
According to The Customer Experience Edge: Australia report by Qualtrics and SAP’s Centre for Experience Management, consumers say making it simple to access “human-like” experiences when needed – such as engaging with a real person – would have the biggest impact on improving their customer experience (44%).
This is buoyed by the finding that 45% of surveyed Australians prefer to have service interactions through a real person, compared to a third (34%) who say their preference depends on the nature of the interaction, and 21% who favour digital platforms.
Other customer experience improvements consumers want to see include being able to perform more service on mobile apps (29%) and receiving a seamless experience across all digital touchpoints (26%). Improving the helpfulness of customer service representatives is also one of the most “impactful issues” organisations need to address to improve their customer experience, says Qualtrics, ahead of mobile app ease of use, offering more digital payment options, and speed of delivery and service.
“With many organisations rethinking and redesigning their customer experience programs, these findings are a critical reminder to not forget the importance of bringing human-like experiences to these touchpoints,” says Lara Truelove, author of The Customer Experience Edge: Australia and Program Leader for the Centre for Experience Management.
“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.”
Human engagements
The interactions tending to leave a greater impression on Australians, either good or bad, says Qualtrics, 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.
Qualtrics says being able to understand and rapidly act on customer feedback is essential to successful CX programs.
“However, the study found satisfied and unsatisfied customers will share their feedback in different ways,” says the company.
“Consumers willing to recommend a company are more likely to respond to a survey, or submit feedback through the website or app. Customers leaving a complaint prefer to give feedback through the website, make a phone call, or send an email.”
Three areas to focus on
The Customer Experience Edge: Australia report highlights three areas for organisations to prioritise in improving their customer experience:
- Empathy at the frontline. “The world needs more frontline heroes, in human-to-human interactions that make or break the experience. 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. “Customers rely upon frontline employees to achieve with them and for them, and this will continue to be the case. 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 – to achieve what they want to, in the channels of their choice, in their digital ecosystem. 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.”