The Art of Customer Happiness
A Harvard Business Review study revealed that a CEO estimated his organization was spending just 5% on innovation, but acknowledged they should be investing 10-15% to stay competitive. It appeared that its not just one CEO. A lot of CEOs have acknowledged this into a HBR research.
We can hear you thinking, we have no time or don’t get innovation done here…. we know time is always the most critical resource in every organization.
But where to start?
When most companies hear "innovation," they often think of radical, long-term programs that disrupt resources and operations. However, businesses can adopt incremental innovations in customer operations, leveraging the transformative potential of AI to achieve significant growth and cost savings. Case studies show that these initiatives can be implemented in just 10-15 weeks, including the initial rollout!
Here is another secret, start looking at your customer operations processes and journeys;
To revolutionize customer operations (call centers) and turn them from mere service stations into powerful engines of customer retention.
Customer-driven Innovation programming
At Appsolute Value, we believe that true innovation stems from a deep understanding of and commitment to customer needs. Our recent collaboration within the Financial Services industry, to establish an customer driven innovation program, is a testament to this philosophy. The initiative focuses on customer-driven innovation, aiming to deliver WOW experiences that not only delight customers but also foster loyalty and attract new clientele.
The Importance of Customer-Centricity
Customer-centricity is at the heart of this innovation program. We operate on the principle that just customer satisfaction is not enough. The research of McKinsey, learns us even more about what happens when you get the new customer relationship right or not:
Consumers expect brands to demonstrate they know them on a personal level
Non-personalized communications pose a business risk in the low-loyalty online environment
Digitally native companies drive more revenue from personalization than other company archetypes
Those digital native companies drive greater revenues and better customer outcomes
Another recipe to create 'Customer Delight' and wow-experiences is to maximize customer attention and invoke more frequent customer Interest, not only to meet but to exceed customer expectations. This will result in a loyal customer base and increase ambassadorship.
When organizations fail to give attention to or help customers in their journey, it leads to customer attrition. Ensuring that customers stay, reduces attrition,eg to reduce customer attrition by just 5% can raise returns by 25-80%.
A search for client happiness
Finding and delivering client happiness is both an art and a science. It requires a balance of empathy, innovation, and technology! By dedicating time to understand and anticipate customer needs, creating WOW experiences, and leveraging AI, businesses can build deeper, more meaningful relationships with their clients.
Customer-driven engagement leads to stronger customer relationships and a loyal customer base. In today's competitive market, customers expect more than just products and services; they seek memorable experiences.
By actively listening to and engaging with customers, businesses can uncover valuable insights that drive innovation and improve service delivery.
Customer-driven innovation initiatives are designed to immerse participants in a culture of innovation, shifting perspectives from 'inside-out' to 'outside-in'. The program includes workshops and continuous interaction aimed at fostering a mindset that views customer problems and 'attention–invoked' experiences, as opportunities for innovation.
Deep diving into customer problems lays the foundation for more profound solutions. It works like this:
Look from Different Dimensions: Understanding customers requires viewing their experiences holistically. This means considering emotional, psychological, and social dimensions, not just transactional ones.
Deep Dive into Customer Problems: Identify the core issues customers face and explore these problems deeply to uncover underlying needs and desires.
Make a Love-Your-Customer Plan
Building a plan that centers on loving your customers involves several key steps. This plan is about going beyond mere satisfaction and aiming to create a deep, emotional connection with customers.
Empathy Mapping: Use tools like empathy mapping to understand what customers are saying, doing, thinking, and feeling.
Customer Journeys: Map out detailed customer journeys to identify pain points and opportunities for delight.
Personalization: Leverage data and insights to personalize interactions and make each customer feel valued.
Key Components of an customer innovation Program:
Workshops and Training: Participants are trained to identify real customer problems through immersive workshops. These sessions provide the tools and techniques needed to uncover deep insights and generate innovative solutions.
Painstorming and Problem-Define Method: Techniques like painstorming help identify customer pain points, which are then translated into problem hypotheses using the Problem-Define Canvas. This ensures that solutions are directly aligned with customer needs.
Empathy Mapping: Understanding the customer experience from multiple angles (say, do, feel, think) helps create a comprehensive view of their needs and challenges.
Prototyping and Testing: Rapid prototyping and prototyping allow for quick iteration and validation of ideas, ensuring that solutions are both feasible and impactful.
The WOW Experience
Creating WOW experiences means exceeding customer expectations in ways that leave a lasting impression. It’s about those moments that make customers say, “Wow!”
Unexpected Delight: Surprise customers with small, thoughtful gestures that show you care about their individual experiences.
Consistency in Excellence: Ensure every interaction, no matter how small, is consistently excellent. This builds trust and reliability.
Emotional Connection: Strive to create an emotional connection by understanding and addressing not just the functional but also the emotional needs of your customers.
AI Loves Your Clients
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play a pivotal role in enhancing customer experiences. By leveraging AI, businesses can offer more personalized, efficient, and proactive customer service. AI is just technology, but organizations can create opportunities by using virtual assistants (VAs) to increase sales. Unexpected attention and specific customer interest can be triggered by their natural language processing (NLP) skills. They know how to keep your customer happy (too).
How AI makes happy customers by
Personalized Recommendations: AI can analyze customer data to provide personalized product recommendations and offers.
Predictive Analytics: Use AI to anticipate customer needs and address them proactively.
Chatbots and Virtual Assistants: Implement AI-driven chatbots to provide 24/7 customer support, answering queries, and solving issues instantly.
Case studies; Zappos & Canadian Tire
Zappos
If you think of a company with the best customer service, Zappos in the US comes quickly to mind by many. In Netherlands we often think about the online retailer Coolblue. The CEO of CoolbLue got his inspiration and learnings from…Zappos.com indeed!
Online Shoe retailer Zappos started in 1998 and grew to a billion dollar company under the inspirational leadership of Tony Hsieh. He established a client service culture, unseen before. Tony was convinced that customer service would make or break the company. In his book Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh shares the principles and values at which Zappos thrives.
The core value of Zappos is ‘Helping’… In 2005 Zappos' mission became ‘to live and deliver WoW experiences'. Some other core values underlining the mission are continuous change, everybody is invited to contribute from up and down the organization, have fun, be open-minded and have a crazy twist.
All those values are contributing to a Zappos' very succesful core operational business area, the call center. Communication is done in an open and fair manner. Agents are well trained to provide lots of customer attention, to grow customer engagement, loyalty and trust.
Canadian Tire
Canadian Tire is Canada’s largest retailer owning different branded retail chains. The Canadian Tire stores are similar to what is Walmart in the USA.
In the early 2010s, the retailer started to grow their digital commerce presence. They delivered wow-experiences to customers using various new digital technologies. They introduced their own WoW guide with QR, VR and AR technologies, integrated to deliver new experiences to entice their customers to experience Canadian Tire digitally.
As a retailer, positioned in leisure, fun and outdoor products, we explored first generation of AI through virtual assistant applications, to provide better customer service and wow the customer in their adventurous, fun and passionate hobbies and shopping experiences.
We consider this our first digital strategy steps in using AI-empowered Virtual Assistants for customer service. You can visit our case study at Youtube here.
Building a Culture of Innovation
At Appsolute Value, we believe that fostering a culture of customer-driven innovation is key to achieving client happiness. This involves creating an environment where new ideas are encouraged and where employees are empowered to think creatively about customer needs to;
Encourage Creativity: Create a work environment that encourages employees to think outside the box and experiment with new ideas.
Stimulate Continuous Learning: Invest in ongoing training and development to keep your team up-to-date with the latest tools and methodologies.
Establish a Collaborative Culture: Promote collaboration across teams to combine different perspectives and generate innovative solutions.
Organizations are invited to rethink how to transform into customer-centric entities aided by customer-driven innovation programs.
AI-empowered virtual assistants should be part of a digital strategy to enhance customer experience and engagement. Companies like Zappos and Candian Tire have demonstrated how a passion for customers can drive long-term success.
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