The Customer of the Future

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We have just completed some interesting research in conjunction with the CCA looking at the key strategies that organisations believe they must deliver to meet the needs of “The Customer of the Future“. We received lots of excellent feedback from over 70 organisations of varying sizes in multiple sectors.

So the industry has spoken. Here’s what it had to say. The top 5 strategies identified by this broad cross-section of organisations is as follows:

  • Customer Service Directors (CSDs) must take the lead.
  • We need to build relationship capability not transactional capability at the front end.
  • We must invest & develop our people to enable success in a more complex future world.
  • We must measure the things that matter most to customers.
  • We must use data to reach out and solve customer problems proactively.

The challenge for CSDs is that all this has to be done against a backdrop of significant budget pressures where “more with less’” is demanded by CEOs. Let’s have a look at a few key findings.

75% of organisations see multichannel capability as key to servicing customers and also critical in reducing the cost to serve. We agree. However, over 70% say their systems are not fit for purpose, with nearly 80% indicating they lack the technology to deliver a single unified view of the customer that would enable their people to spend more time engaging with the customer, building rapport and taking ownership of issues. Again we agree. But only 5% of organisations say their people have insufficient training. This doesn’t stack up to us. We think this massively understates the training, coaching and development our people want and need. Money, as always, is the perceived problem.

Whilst metrics like customer satisfaction still figure prominently in what gets measured, a significant majority of organisations said one of their biggest challenges was reducing customer effort, yet only 8% are measuring this. Measures such as average handle time still figure prominently. We need to measure what’s important to customers. We need to have the courage to bring this to life.

At Kura, our take on all of this is that the opportunity to do things differently and better is enormous. Our philosophy is all about our people. Our people are our primary focus. Our Vision is to create a business that is “Unrivalled in Developing People”. And not just in our own industry. This is hugely aspirational and to realise this Vision we have very different strategies, very different client relationships and we think and act very differently every day. Our software business Inisoft, which specialises in unified agent desktop and self-serve technologies, helps us on our journey.

Let me leave you with a final thought. A key aspect called out by all of these organisations is the need for stronger functional leadership. CSDs must bring compelling business cases to their boards as to why they should invest in customer service. When we first meet CSDs they always want to know the answer to one question. You know it’s coming you’re just never quite sure when. “What’s your attrition” they ask? Our answer never changes. “It will be what you and I decide it’s going to be.” Let’s take collective ownership for how we treat the people who deliver the service to our customers. The Customer of the Future would like that.

Written by Brian Bannatyne

www.wearekura.com Vision to be Unrivalled in Developing People Across all Organisations

 

Author: Rachael Trickey

Published On: 8th Dec 2016 - Last modified: 6th Feb 2019
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