Table of contents
- Listen to the voice of your customers, literally
- Deliver a customer experience that is convenient and hassle-free
- Create a meaningful agent experience that is personalized and authentic
- Adopt customer-centric business metrics
- Focus on the holistic employee experience
- Stop talking and start doing: Take action to improve your CX
- Outperform the competition on delivering the basics
Companies are moving forward in 2022 with executives largely optimistic about the potential for revenue growth. Customer experience is top of mind as CEOs chart their course for the upcoming months and years.
But a lot has changed over the past two years. Companies will need to factor in the profound shifts in both customers’ and employees’ expectations that have, and will continue to, impact the business considerably.
How will CX and contact center leaders recalibrate the customer and agent experience for the post-pandemic business environment? In this two-part blog series, we asked top industry experts to share their thoughts on the biggest opportunities for CX and contact center leaders in the year ahead. (Read Part 1 for additional views.)
Below, you’ll find valuable insights from Dan Gingiss, Shep Hyken, Debbie Szumylo, Jim Tincher, Adam Toporek, Jeremy Watkin, and Matt Watkinson.
Listen to the voice of your customers, literally
The biggest opportunity is to listen to your customers. Collect feedback, analyze it, and take action on it. But more than that, spend some time literally listening—to customer service calls, focus groups, or just a 1:1 meeting. It is amazing how much you’ll learn if you just ask questions and then listen to the answers. You’ll also get the benefit of hearing your customers’ tone of voice and emotions, which don’t come out in reports or transcripts.
Find out how AI-powered speech analytics can help you listen in on customer conversations and discover hidden insights about customer intent, emotions, and expectations:
Guide to the AI Call Center: How To Revamp Your Customer Service
Deliver a customer experience that is convenient and hassle-free
Shep Hyken
Customer Service and Experience Expert
Author of “I’ll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again”
Website: hyken.com
Twitter: twitter.com/Hyken
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/shephyken
One of the biggest opportunities for CX leaders in 2022 is to invest in creating a more convenient and hassle-free experience. You start by analyzing every touchpoint the customer has with your organization. Is there a better, easier, and faster way to manage that interaction? Our research shows that a convenient experience makes price less relevant and is a major contributor to the customer saying, “I’ll be back!”
Learn how customer journey mapping can help you identify and improve service touch points along the paths your customers take:
Create a meaningful agent experience that is personalized and authentic
Debbie Szumylo
Manager, Customer Advocacy/Customer Experience Evangelist
Twitter: twitter.com/DebbieSzumylo
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/dszumylo
2022 is the year of the employee. Over the past 24 months, we have witnessed a profound shift in the type of relationship employees want with their employers.
There is a significant opportunity for those companies that create personalized, authentic experiences for their employees. Workers are hungry for meaningful roles with companies that demonstrate caring, support, a focus on wellness, flexibility, personal empowerment and appreciation.
Companies that quickly get comfortable with the evolution of their employees and adjust accordingly will become leading employers. The cream on the top? A successful employee experience culture accelerates growth, improves customer loyalty and increases revenue.
Discover practical steps to improve the agent experience in your contact center:
Adopt customer-centric business metrics
Jim Tincher
Founder, CEO & Journey Mapper-In-Chief
Heart of the Customer
Website: heartofthecustomer.com
Twitter: twitter.com/jimtincher
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jimtincher
The biggest opportunity for CX leaders is to start treating CX like a business discipline. By that, I mean they need to adopt solid business metrics and work to improve them. While the specific business metric will vary by type of business, my favorite overall is Net Revenue Retention. Customer Lifetime Value is another good one, but it’s harder to calculate.
Learn how contact center analytics enables contact centers to deliver relevant insights to inform the business:
How Analytics Will Earn Contact Centers a Seat at the C-Suite Table
10 High-Value Use Cases For Predictive Analytics in the Contact Center
Focus on the holistic employee experience
Adam Toporek
Author of “Be Your Customer’s Hero”
Website: customersthatstick.com
Twitter: twitter.com/adamtoporek
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/adamtoporek
While technology is always a source of CX opportunity, in the wake of The Great Resignation, the greatest opportunity for customer experience leaders in 2022 is focusing on the employee experience. Customer experience leaders who can attract, train, and retain team members, place them within a customer-centric culture, and inspire them toward a customer-focused mission will win the day.
Read more about how to improve the agent experience:
Onboarding to Optimization: Tips to Improve Agent Experience
Stop talking and start doing: Take action to improve your CX
Jeremy Watkin
Director of Customer Experience and Support, NumberBarn
Co-founder, CustomerServiceLife blog
Website: numberbarn.com
Blog: customerservicelife.com
Twitter: twitter.com/jtwatkin
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jtwatkin
As I ponder my own journey as a customer experience and contact center leader, I realize that 2022 is the year where CX stops being a buzzword. This is the year when we realize that talking about CX doesn’t actually improve the experience for our customers. This is the year when we learn that there’s no magic pill to swallow or single piece of technology that will revolutionize customer engagement.
It’s time to understand the key drivers of our customer call, email, chat, SMS, and social media volume, and one by one, become intimately familiar with those issues. We must talk with our agents and work with engineering, marketing, sales, and product teams in our companies. And most importantly, we must connect directly with customers. And then we must make continuous, consistent, measurable improvements. Only then will our CX improve.
Read how to combine CX data with technology and best practices to focus on the CX improvements that will deliver the most impactful results:
Outperform the competition on delivering the basics
Matt Watkinson
CEO and Co-founder, Methodical
Author of “The Grid” and “The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences”
Website: matt-watkinson.com
Website: methodical.io
Twitter: twitter.com/mwtknsn
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/matt-watkinson
What’s the biggest opportunity for customer experience leaders in 2022? Simple: Identify what aspects of the customer experience create the most value for the most current and prospective customers—whether it’s speed, reliability, clarity of communication, ease, or anything else—and ruthlessly prioritize outperforming the competition in those areas. Brilliant basics beats bells and whistles every time. Continuously improve the fundamentals and customers will reward you for your efforts.
Learn more about how to create a great customer experience:
