3 Thought Leaders Highlight The Role of Customer Experience in Business Success
The 21st-century telecommunications arena hosts an increasing number of product and service providers. Some companies cater to the consumer market while other firms tailor their offerings to business communications customers. Within each market, multiple providers offer roughly the same types of products and/or services.
On this relatively equal playing field, the customer experience is the key differentiator. The cycle begins with a prospect's first exposure to a company, and it continues through every communication exchange. The company's customer support operation also plays a key role in the customer experience.
The user's good (or bad) customer experience influences their desire to do business with the company again. On a macro scale, customer experience can substantially affect the business' longer-term success (or failure).
What "Customer Experience" Means
The term "customer experience" has both micro and macro definitions. On a personal scale, a customer experience refers to each interaction a consumer or business customer has with a brand. Over time, these collective interactions provide the user with an overall impression of the brand.
A good customer experience begins with brand awareness. The potential user learns about the brand's product or service via targeted online searches and/or the brand's marketing campaign. Ideally, the brand's market research has identified its target market's needs and wants, which can change over time. The research should also uncover the factors that may influence potential customers' purchase decisions.
Let's assume a potential customer purchases the brand's offering (telecommunications services, in this case). Now, customers expect glitch-free service at a predictable cost.
If technical or service problems arise, the customer wants seamless communications with the brand to resolve the issues. Finally, the customer expects the brand's customer and/or technical support team to be available when they are needed - including during non-standard business hours.
How Positive Customer Experiences Can Help a Brand to Stand Out
In the increasingly crowded telecommunications marketplace, many brands compete for each potential customer's business. The digitally savvy customer often has multiple products and/or service options available.
Delivering extraordinary customer experiences - every time - is a powerful way to rise above the marketplace noise. To do this, a brand must discover more dynamic ways to engage with its prospects and customers. Omnichannel messaging, or using integrated messaging channels, is gaining increased marketplace traction.
Mitto COO Emphasizes the Importance of Brand-Customer Communication
Ilja Gorelik is Mitto's co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (or COO). The Switzerland-based firm supports global businesses' growth via innovative omnichannel communications solutions. Gorelik said that brand-customer communication is essential for gaining (and keeping) customers.
"While the pandemic all but eliminated in-person communication between the two, the slow decline of brick-and-mortar has been in effect for well over a decade. [This means] the vast majority of touchpoints between a business and its customer happen digitally. And we've all encountered less-than-ideal digital communications between colleagues, friends, and/or family to understand how fragile and challenging it is to communicate in a wide array of digital channels
"For brands, today, ensuring they're 'getting it right' with their digital customer communications is vital: it's more or less the only way in which the two interact these days. [As] recent research we conducted shows, nearly three-quarters of Americans will stop patronizing a brand if they receive as little as three poor support experiences," Ilja Gorelik concluded.
Mitto: Consumer Survey Reveals Three Customer Experience Priorities
Mitto's use of high-level customer engagement technology has led to its industry leadership. The company's easy integration of voice, SMS, and chat app APIs joins its proven business messaging capabilities. Taken together, Mitto's telecommunications offerings facilitate business growth, especially for enterprise-level companies.
Exceptional customer support helps to facilitate improved customer experiences. Mitto's COO Ilja Gorelik says providing top-tier customer service should be a pillar of every brand's marketing strategy.
The Mitto Consumer Survey Results
To illustrate, in May 2021 Mitto published results from a survey of 1,000 Americans. Each survey subject had accessed a customer service function one or more times during the past year.
Mitto's survey found that the overwhelming majority of respondents appreciated a brand's strong customer support. These positive feelings often led to consumers buying more of the brand's products and/or services.
Next, Ilja Gorelik noted that survey respondents listed three priorities for good customer support. These characteristics apply to businesses of every size and industry.
A Consistent Brand Voice
In any support interaction, the customer wants their issue resolved in one call, chat, or email. They don't want endless back-and-forth discussions with a support associate or chatbot unfamiliar with the customer's needs.
To avoid this pointless exercise, a brand should regard all customer interactions as one extended conversation. The brand should also recognize that each interaction contributes (and ideally adds value) to the overall customer experience.
Multiple Communication Channels
Consumers and business customers use multiple communication channels during their daily activities. Therefore, a brand should also offer omnichannel messaging for customer support services.
Mitto's survey found that over half of respondents preferred SMS/text messaging for customer support interactions. This super-convenient communications medium elicits a direct response rather than waiting in an endless phone queue. A text-focused exchange also enables the customer to respond when it's convenient for them.
A Fast, Efficient Response
Roughly one-third of Mitto's survey respondents are willing to wait a maximum of five minutes for an SMS/text or chat app response. However, the average customer service response time is over 12 hours. Here, an automated update might help to calm an already-frustrated customer.
For perspective, it takes one to three subpar customer support interactions for many consumers to abandon a brand. However, superior interactions often result in positive social media posts, customer referrals, and business growth.
Windstream Enterprise: Focus on Solutions, Not Products
In both the consumer and business telecommunications arenas, customers increasingly want integrated solutions that solve their problems. They don't want brands to push products at them, says Rick Hausman, Windstream Enterprise's executive vice president of customer operations. Windstream offers unified communications, connectivity, networking, and other relevant solutions.
"Customer[s] are buying solutions, not individual products, and your customer lifecycle needs to reflect that…The product (or solution) complexity is exponential and requires CX to be built into the product itself, minimizing the complexity for customers as they use them," he concluded.
Hausman recommended that telecommunications firms implement three customer experience strategies, all designed with elegant simplicity in mind.
- Create customer target markets along with a tailored customer lifecycle. The brand will identify the customer's wants and desires while designing experiences at scale.
- Make investments in the customer support infrastructure. The goal will be to drive more predictable service outcomes.
- Design a single digital experience plan so customers can define the interaction terms. Some customers prefer push info while others want to pull info or chat options.
T-Mobile: Always Put The Customers First
In the consumer telecommunications industry, T-Mobile stands out as the upstart company that has grown from 20 million to over 100 million customers. In the process, T-Mobile jumped ahead of AT&T to take the No. 2 spot in this expanding telecommunications arena.
Mike Sievert, T-Mobile's President and Chief Executive Officer, said the business uses industry-standard technology to create a superior customer experience. "It's really our aspiration to be better at that than any other company in the world, in our space, and to build a brand as a result that customers love…In 2012, we decided to become 'the Un-carrier' - of being unlike every other company in our industry," he declared.
For starters, T-Mobile eliminated contracts and provided a rate plan that includes worldwide calling at no extra charge. Beyond that, the company took steps to identify customers' pain points and address them in customers' favor. Mike Sievert acknowledged the risks and logistical problems but said the company remains committed to the outcome.
"Our strategy is to put customers first and to change the rules of the industry in their favor. We listen to them and make changes that they'll appreciate. We believe that if we make an investment in customers, they'll make an investment back in us. That's our formula. It's so simple and easy to say, but it turns out that it's hard to do.
"Our vision as a company is to be the number one in customer choice, but it's also to be number one in customers' hearts. We think that's ultimately what makes us different. It's the secret sauce of this business," Mike Sievert concluded.
Taking the Long-Term Approach
Better customer experiences can set the stage for a telecommunications brand's success. With that said, companies should be prepared to invest in the infrastructure that facilitates this ongoing paradigm shift. With a customer-first culture and a firm long-term commitment, businesses will be well-positioned to stand out in the industry.