{"id":32027,"date":"2020-02-17T16:18:50","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T16:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=32027"},"modified":"2020-02-17T16:18:57","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T16:18:57","slug":"iqbusiness-south-africa-expert-on-how-the-customer-experience-can-be-enhanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2020\/02\/17\/iqbusiness-south-africa-expert-on-how-the-customer-experience-can-be-enhanced\/","title":{"rendered":"IQbusiness South Africa expert on how the customer experience can be enhanced"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Kerry Thomas, Head of Customer Experience Management at IQbusiness South Africa, tells <em>Intelligent CIO<\/em> how the customer experience is benefiting from technology.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How does technology enhance the customer experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Technology is an\nenabler to enhance the customer experience, in the case where customers are\nable to utilise technology, for example Artificial\nIntelligence, to gain exposure to alternative products or service\nofferings, in real-time <\/li><li>Technology,\nsuch as predictive analytics,\ncan enhance the customer experience where it can be used to predict specific\ncustomer behaviours and patterns leading to more proactive and customised\nengagements, products and services&nbsp; <\/li><li>Through the use of technology, customers can have an interactive,\neasy-to-use experience with your brand, products and services by means of self-service channels. This in turn\ngenerates a more customer-controlled experience where a customer can craft\ntheir journey in a matter of seconds. Customer touchpoints move away from high\n\u2018human touch,\u2019 to more \u2018personal robotic touch\u2019 interactions. <\/li><li>Advanced technology features\nsuch as live chat, chat bots and pop\nups help increase positive interactions with customers. These\ntechnological enablers are often used to proactively help customers when they\nneed assistance the most and it can likewise transform perusing via virtual\nchannels, into real-time deals. <\/li><li>Technology can assist service\nproviders in delivering information and service to customers in many different\nformats, at a faster pace and more effectively. It can also reduce delivery\ntimes and make information accessible to people with disabilities. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\ntrends are you seeing in terms of new technologies being utilised to enhance\nthe customer experience?<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning has worked its way into most customer journeys in today\u2019s organisations. A PwC study of 2,500 U.S. consumers and business decision makers found that business leaders, specifically, believe AI is going to be fundamental in the future. In fact, 72% termed it a \u2018business advantage\u2019. AI and Machine Learning have been top-of-mind for companies for several years. Chat bots for customer service has seen the most maturity.<strong> <\/strong><\/li><li>Targeted Marketing based on consumer patterns derived from Machine Learning<\/li><li>24\/7 service via conversational bots: Customers expect to receive an immediate answer to marketing and sales-related questions, and this figure is as high as 90% for issues relating to customer service. The traditional waiting-loop principle in call centres has become a thing of the past; agents are now responding to customer inquiries via chat or voice in just a few minutes. Chat bots<strong> <\/strong>are enhancing direct responses to customers and can be designed to further build on the customer experience strategy taken. However, this is a million miles from the wooden, scripted dialogues that many customers have had to endure on websites in recent years<\/li><li>Improved self-service and omni-channel capabilities are becoming more prevalent in today\u2019s organisations, allowing customers to choose the way they want to interact with your organisation, product or service, and not be inhibited by the company\u2019s specified timeframes or locations.<\/li><li>Additional interactive capabilities such as voice prompts and recognition are being utilised to speed up the way we interact with objects and services by providing a more natural way to engage and receive feedback<\/li><li>As with voice recognition,facial recognition technology is becoming more apparent to authenticate customers and to even enable the processing of payments and transactions. Using\u00a0facial recognition\u00a0technology for another purpose, some companies use it to identify how a\u00a0customer\u00a0is feeling during or after an\u00a0experience. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How\nimportant is the customer to IT companies?<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\ncustomer is important to all companies, without customers, we don\u2019t have a\ncompany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Customers\nshould be placed at the centre and a company\u2019s products, services and channels\nshould be built around meeting the needs of those customers.&nbsp; I strongly believe in Steve Jobs\u2019 philosophy\nthat echoes this &#8211; \u201cYou&#8217;ve got to\nstart&nbsp;with the customer experience and&nbsp;work backwards&nbsp;to the\ntechnology. You can&#8217;t&nbsp;start&nbsp;with the technology and try to figure out\nwhere you&#8217;re&nbsp;going&nbsp;to sell it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\napproaches should industry leaders take when providing a customer experience?<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First\nto understand the specific customer they are designing the experience for, to\nthen design the experience with the needs of that customer in mind, and then to\nenhance and simplify the customer experience with the relevant technology where\nrequired. In order to do this effectively though, and for a large number of\ncustomers and products of today\u2019s organisation, you would need to invest in\nestablishing a customer experience management capability (Centre of Excellence),\nthat can leverage proven customer experience improvement or enhancement\nmethodologies to redesign the required customer experiences, implement the new\ndesigns and technologies, and ensure sustainability over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Observe and understand the interaction through\nthe customer\u2019s eyes: <\/strong>Technology has handed customers unprecedented\npower to dictate the rules in purchasing goods and services. Three-quarters of\nthem, research finds, expect a \u2018now\u2019 service within five minutes of making\ncontact online. A similar share wants a simple experience, use comparison apps\nwhen they shop and put as much trust in online reviews as in personal\nrecommendations. Increasingly, customers expect from all players the same kind\nof immediacy, personalisation and convenience that they receive from leading\npractitioners such as Google and Amazon.<\/li><li><strong>Identify and understand the customer\u2019s journey:<\/strong> Pay\nattention to the complete, end-to-end experience customers have with a company\nfrom their perspective. Too many companies focus on individual interaction\ntouchpoints devoted to billing, onboarding, service calls and the like. In\ncontrast, a customer journey spans a progression of touchpoints and has a\nclearly defined beginning and end.<\/li><li><strong>Quantify what matters to your customers: <\/strong>Customers\nhold companies to high standards for product quality, service performance and\nprice. How can companies determine which of these factors are the most critical\nto the customer segments they serve? Which generate the highest economic value?\nIn most companies, there are a handful of critical customer journeys.\nUnderstanding them, customer segment by customer segment, helps a business to\nmaintain focus, have a positive impact on customer satisfaction and begin the\nprocess of redesigning functions around customer needs<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Can it be difficult to keep up with customer demand\nand does it require organisations to now take a different approach to ensure\nthat their customers get the best experience?<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nneeds of a specific customer type does not necessarily change that rapidly;\nhowever their expectation on how that need is met and delivered can change at a\nvery different pace. The expectation on the customer experience being received\nis not just based on how that experience is received from that specific\norganisation but might be compared to an experience received within another\norganisation or even another industry all together. The expectations that\ncustomers tend to have are based on experiences that transcend industries.\nThese expectations can change, depending on what life stage the customer is in\nas well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Customer\npersona\u2019s categorised according to needs should be created and then refreshed\non an annual basis. Inherent needs may not change as frequently, but\nexpectations, circumstance and life stage can adjust the expectations related\nto their experience of a product, service or organisation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kerry Thomas, Head of Customer Experience Management at IQbusiness South Africa, tells Intelligent CIO how the customer experience is benefiting from technology. How does technology enhance the customer experience? Technology is an enabler to enhance the customer experience, in the case where customers are able to utilise technology, for example Artificial Intelligence, to gain exposure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":32028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4950,328,6,10675,13],"tags":[496,872,386,2831,12618,939,464,622,12616,12615,12617,392,12619,1632,2896,12620],"class_list":["post-32027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-features","category-insights","category-thought-leadership","category-top-stories","tag-ai","tag-amazon","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-centre-of-excellence","tag-chat-bot","tag-customer-experience","tag-facial-recognition","tag-google","tag-iqbusiness-south-africa","tag-kerry-thomas","tag-live-chat","tag-machine-learning","tag-pop-ups","tag-predictive-analytics","tag-pwc","tag-targeting-marketing"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32029,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32027\/revisions\/32029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}