Elevating Customer Service through Digitalization

Every organization wants to exceed its customers’ expectations. With many alternatives out there, moving from one competitor to another does not take long. Organizations will need to feel for their customers’ needs and expectations with customer problem solving at the forefront.

Since the pandemic, most purchases have shifted from in-person to online, and customers have become more sensitive and selective in their decision making process. A critical factor for the digitally savvy customer is how quickly, easily and effortlessly a process takes. Why? Consumers are demanding for efficiency. Organizations who have not pursued a digital transformation will struggle to remain competitive in the current landscape. 

In this exclusive interview with Raj Chaudhuri, Vice President, Global Business Services at American Express, he shares how the reorientation of business models to digital will help perpetuate CX according to the new standards, tips on deploying automation as well as being proactive and reactive in real time.

How can an organization accelerate their digital transformation strategy?

To accelerate one’s digital strategy it is particularly important for an organization to have clear, distinct, and succinct articulation for the need to embark on an automation journey. It can be the common rationale of cost optimization or defining a long-term vision of being essential in the digital lives of their customers. Once the ‘WHY’ has been defined the next critical step is to envisage an end-to-end (E2E) roadmap by aligning all key stakeholders, which goes a long way in removing roadblocks during execution. There are two other critical factors in accelerating the rollout – firstly optimize the process and remove nonvalue added steps/documentation & simplify decision matrices which enables easier coding and higher success rates. Secondly, effective collaboration across all players is mission critical. No one team can do this alone and speed of execution is directly proportional to the level of collaboration.

How can organizations fine-tune automation processes to support high performance?

In many organizations, process journeys have been historically designed by placing humans as the centrepiece and while this has worked brilliantly through the years, when replacing humans with a BOT, we risk the cognitive aspects of the process instantly. Therefore, reviewing & redesigning the process and making it RPA friendly is vital before building the code. One can define the process in 3 different ways:

i) E2E automation

ii) Human in Loop

iii) Assisted automation.

The difference between the last two is that in ‘Human in Loop’, the employee should step in only for a small part of the process before handing over the case to the BOT, whereas in an Assisted automation, the employee works most of the case and then passes it on the BOT for closure. By taking this approach, one should be able to significantly improve their automation rates.

How can organizations re-engage with their customers in the evolution of customer needs, attitudes and values?

Customers always recommend organizations, who recognize them, solve their problems with agility & are easy to deal with. What the last 12 months have taught us – it is that while the fundamental needs have not changed, they want this increasingly through digital mediums. Digital roadmaps now must be more holistic and cater to a wide range of customer needs with high degree of self-service.

For example, in American Express, we realized that our customers were frustrated with the name change process. It involved lots of documentation, forms to be filled and high turnaround times. A cross functional team got together, challenged status quo, eased documentation & provided and E2E functionality on the app. And today, a customer can complete the whole process in a matter of minutes without contacting an agent. A delight when compared to the past – its easy, fast and provides instant resolution.

How is the move to digitalization impacting the way you develop talent?

In my opinion, for a digital transformation to be successful, it is not simply about tools and platforms but more about how people leverage them innovatively. Anyone can buy technology off the shelf, but to adapt & integrate them into operational processes requires extensive reskilling / upskilling of people and organizations who meaningfully invest in developing talent will stand to benefit from better, faster digital transformations with high levels of accuracy.

To get approach right, companies will have to put people before technology. While technology eliminates outdated jobs, it also creates new ones and its beneficial for companies to harness existing talent for these jobs. Further focusing on soft skills, acting on data insights & driving change from the top will future proof organizations. Agility is usually human lead & technology assisted, so its imperative for companies see talent development a part of the digital transformation process.

What are some ways to succeed in the new digital reality?

The truth is that the pandemic has offered everyone a great opportunity to pause, reflect and significantly transform products and services. To succeed in the new reality organizations will have to study a detailed analysis of their customers’ expectations, benchmarks set by competitors and measure them against their own vision and philosophy. Combining this knowledge with great leadership can definitely pivot towards a winning digital framework. Some of the key elements of this framework include targeted web presence, social media marketing, interactive mediums & providing real time responses to commonly asked questions. Adding a personal touch during key moments will further create a favorable customer mindset in turn creating brand ambassadors.

Indeed, a digital recovery is seeing increased engagement between organizations and customer as well as lowering costs. This in turn will transform a lackluster experience into a great one. The organizations that succeed are those that get the key elements right, and the ones that don't, might end up stumbling. I’m sure with the advice from Raj, you will be well positioned to please customers, accelerate innovation and performance improvement. All in all, with a unifying objective to put your customer first, you are already charting your path to success!

Learn more about elevating your service through digitalization at NGCX Asia, happening online from 2 - 3rd June 2021 SGT, where we have an All-Star Panel: Reinventing UX across all touchpoints – How can you provide a frictionless experience across the entire end to-end customer journey. 

Register for FREE now!