While the words customer experience and customer service are often thrown around synonymously, they are vastly different. Customer service transpires through the buying process or when customers encounter a problem. But customer experience has a lot more about it than just customer service.
CX or customer experience transpires through the entire journey of a prospect of becoming a customer. It starts right from the moment a customer thinks of doing business with a brand, be it in person or through digital channels and continues at every point of interaction with the brand, as well as with the products on sale. However, controlling communications and guiding customer journeys throughout every single point of interaction can pose to be a challenge for brands. Here are a few lessons on customer experience from the top 3 global brands that most of you would know and have likely done business with.
Lessons on CX from Amazon
Amazon is ubiquitously one of the easiest companies to do business with across the globe! Whether it’s for its mad genius techno-prenuer CEO or for its single-minded focus towards achieving economies of scale, Amazon really delivers on CX at every level of interaction that solidifies confidence on the brand.
Customer-first, brand-second!
Amazon has always prioritized a “customer first” approach. Every product or program they launch is first appraised by a simple question – if this is going to be right for the customers! While this is the very definition of a customer-focused approach most brands often precede this simple question with another question – if this is right for our brand, which should ideally be the second question to think about. Most brands ask the second question first, or don’t ask the first question at all! And that’s where they go wrong.
Amazon’s mission is to be ‘Earth’s most customer-centric company’ and that is evident is their extremely friendly customer services policies. They work with numerous call center outsourcing companies around the world, both for their English call center and Multilingual call center support needs. Despite going the route of customer service outsourcing solutions, their customer support is highly consistent. Rightly called ‘the earth’s most customer-centric company’, their outsourced call center agents are rigorously trained to continuously raise the bar on customer experience by advocating and inventing for customers.
Knowing customers’ minds!
It is no mystery that the biggest reason for the success of Amazon or any other major e-com service is the fact that they could get right into the minds of their customers and deliver what they need the most – Convenience! With the ease of ordering necessities, tracking of orders, transparent pricing information where users can see the lowest prices available, and a robust self-service system, Jeff has created a giant that focuses relentlessly on customer convenience.
The tech that keeps it human!
Amazon is a technology company, but what’s unique about it is that it has kept its customer service human! Regardless of the fact that people get self-service, and there’s barely any contact with an Amazon employee, users always feel the great human service behind the tech hardware. And inevitably when the technology fails, there’s always a highly skilled customer support representative willing to help you out as quickly as possible.
Amazon remembers its customers
Despite the growing uproar with privacy and customer data, data tracking isn’t always bad. Amazon uses its sophisticated customer data and tracking system to deliver users a better experience. Using data to transform customer experience on every step of the interaction can help strengthen customers’ confidence in the brand in a non-intrusive yet personalized manner.
Lessons on CX from Apple
Yet another master of customer experience, Apple manages to offer great CX from the moment a buyer unboxes an Apple product. They make for great customer experience at every level of interaction. With their single-minded focus on the idea that is “brand strength”. Apple stand out from the million other tech product manufacturers and maintains a population of Apple-enthusiasts with three things it does perfectly – Engagement, Differentiation and Consistency.
Delivering engagement
Promote active communication with your clients, conducive conversations are the base for building a bond with the customer. Prompt and genuine responses, listening to feedback and then acting on the same is the mark of a true consumer-friendly brand, like Apple.
Differentiation – Why should they choose you?
The best way to achieve true differentiation and standout from the rest is by asking yourself this simple question – “Why should they buy from me instead of my competitors”? This will tell you about your brand’s value proposition. The value proposition shouldn’t be vague like “we offer great customer service”, but tangible and something that your customers would love.
Elevating customer service into a science
Apple stands shoulders above the competition when it comes to impeccable customer service. In one of the videos Steve Job asks ‘“Wouldn’t it be great if when you went to buy a computer, or after you bought a computer, if you had any questions, you could ask a genius?”, Jobs asks. “Well, that’s what we’ve got…” Apple’s customer service manifests this vision to date. Whether you go to their ubiquitous retail stores or call at their call centres, the phenomenal support they provide in alleviating the headache that entails a faulty tech product is in sharp contrast to the hassles and nightmares one experiences if your tech product isn’t Apple! Apple’s call center agents are always helpful, and knowledgable
Replicating that level customer experience requires a serious commitment. If you feel that you don’t have bandwidth internally, you should consider taking advantage of customer support outsourcing solutions. There are plenty of Call center outsourcing companies who are renowned for their award-winning customer service outsourcing solutions and boasts of some of the world’s biggest brands amongst their clients.
Lessons on CX from Aetna
A biggie in health insurance and related services, American brand Atena has made serious efforts and investment in ensuring that their customers have access to health care information in their preferred language.
A big proponent of speaking the language of your customers
Recognizing the need to “engage the customer through the lens of their culture and language,” and Atena partnered with Voiance’s organization for Phone Interpretation services that enables them to offer Multilingual call center services. Aetna’s multilingual call centres are staffed by bilingual customer service agents that include Chinese call center agents, and Spanish call center agents, apart from English call center agents. They offer Multilingual customer support in 150 other languages with the help of interpreters. These Multilingual call center agents respond to customers’ questions about benefits etc. in their preferred language. Aetna received ICMI award for providing best Multilingual Call Center Services for its customers.
Global by design and not by the scale
Any good Multilingual call center worth it’s salt would know the importance of cultural factors that influence language heavily. Any good French customer will inevitably feel more comfortable talking to a native French call centre agent instead of getting lost in automated translation or trying to communicate and explain themselves in English. Aetna’s growth and demand are driven by their attention to not only language preferences among their customers but also the fact that there are cultural nuances to language. They did extensive research to learn about their ethnically and culturally diverse customers’ needs and tailor their products and services accordingly such as targeted disease prevention and management programs. They also have onboard bilingual Spanish nurses apart from their Spanish call centre, who consult and support customers on chronic conditions. Since they are native Spanish, they are better able to build a rapport with customers and help address the issue of racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Aetna also focuses on culturally relevant advertising in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.
Aetna put in motion a number of other initiatives to provide Multilingual Customer Support including multilingual online tools on their website and bilingual assistance during open enrollment sessions.
The global economy exposes all businesses to a diverse range of customers from different parts of the world, so it is only fair we equip our customer support with the right multilingual customer support agents. However, finding and maintaining such staffs with all these language skills can be challenging. But there are several reputable multilingual outsourcing solutions available that can help you out at a fraction of the investment. With the help of multilingual customer support outsourcing solution, a business wouldn’t need their multilingual call center agents to be present 24*7.
At LiveSalesman, a leading customer support outsourcing solutions provider, we offer multilingual call center outsourcing solutions in over 30 European and Asian languages including French call centre, Spanish call Centre, German call centre, Portuguese call centre and Chinese call centre.
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