The Journey Behind Customer Experience (CX) Transformation

To meet the needs of today’s empowered consumer, organisations need to embark on a customer experience (CX) transformation journey.

A Haven to Share CX Challenges

To help organisations along this journey, we’ve been running exclusive CX transformation led networking events. By sharing challenges and best practice methodologies, we’ve created a ‘safe haven’ for thought leaders within the contact centre space. A space to share CX insight, drive efficiency and connect with like-minded peers.

Attended by Customer Experience and Contact Centre Directors, our aim is to gather attendees who are directly on the frontline of the CX battlefield, in order to discuss challenges shaping our ever-changing industry.

Joined by fellow industry peers, our last event was bursting with insight, including presentations from clients, partners, and in-depth discussions into CX challenges. These insights were too good to miss – here’s a recap of the main themes discussed at our last event.

What Makes a Successful Business Transformation Strategy?

One of the stories shared at our last event was regarding a successful business transformation strategy. Led by Digital Transformation expert Simon Hill, implementing a business transformation strategy can be a challenging task.

In fact, according to research by McKinsey, the average success rate for business transformation programs have remained persistently low. Change in general is hard. Change at a transformative enterprise scale is even harder. However, change is key to maintaining customer relationships, customer service and employee engagement.

Business Transformation Models

When talking about business transformation models, there are three different types:

1. Operational Transformation – Bringing in new technologies to solve old problems
2. Operating Model Transformation – Large scale and complex change
3. Strategic Transformation – Changing the essence of companies

In order for business transformation strategies to succeed, particularly with digital transformation which may form part of a wider CX strategy, organisations need to first change their thinking in order to change their behaviour.

There also needs to be a period of reflection during a business transformation. If not, organisations may fall prone to change fatigue which according to Gartner will ‘manifest itself in negative reactions such as burnout, frustration or apathy, resulting in lower employee engagement and productivity’.

Business Transformation Checklist for Success

In order to succeed, organisations should consider the following steps when creating a successful business or digital transformation strategy:

1. Start with a clear and candid assessment of business conditions and challenges
2. Build an inclusive and diverse transformation team
3. Establish insightful reporting which can track the commercial value of the transformation
4. Continually communicate internally to maintain that clarity of vision
5. Be agile and take practical steps to change the ways people work
6. Be ambitious and find new ways of delivering holistic capabilities

How to Drive Employee Engagement with a People-First Philosophy

Employee engagement forms one of the building blocks for a successful customer transformation journey.

There is no doubt that engaged employees will buy into your company vision. Led by Kay-Leigh Butler, Resource Planning Manager at Zen Internet, here are five steps organisations can take to build better engaged and happier employees:

1. Focus on Training

Training is an essential part of employee engagement, and this should be a focus from the get-go. Examples of successful training methods include:

• Breaking down barriers and introducing new employees to senior management during their induction programme
• A mentoring programme for employees as well as the leadership team
• Ensuring there is career development opportunity within the organisation to help retain staff

2. Sharing in Success

Ensuring there are incentives for employees can go a long way in encouraging motivation. Examples include:

• Work anniversary celebrations
• Monthly/quarterly internal awards
• Thank you cards in the post
• Appreciation posts on LinkedIn

3. Seeking Employee Feedback & Input

Asking employees for their feedback can work wonders for employee engagement. This can be achieved through anonymous surveys which can be rolled out monthly or quarterly. As well as seeking employee feedback, acting on this feedback is even more important.

4. Diversity and Inclusion Groups

To encourage employee motivation and input, consider setting up diversity or inclusion groups. These groups can work extremely well for helping to build interdepartmental relationships.

5. Benefits

Offering employees work benefits can go a long way for employee engagement. Benefits include:

• Healthcare policies
• Life Insurance cover
• Offering employees, the day off during their birthday

How to Drive Digital Transformation Within the Contact Centre

Digital Transformation within the contact centre is a hot topic, and one which was led by Graham Wilson, Head of Business Development at Sofology. In order to drive contact centre transformation, ensuring the customer is at the heart of everything is vital.

To drive a successful digital transformation within the contact centre space consider the following steps:

1. Ensure Teams are Integrated: This could mean merging office spaces so that teams are constantly sharing knowledge with one another
2. Build Bridges With Departments: Interdepartmental relations are key to ensuring you have a well-defined CX strategy
3. Product Knowledge: Ensure you instil an element of product knowledge within all departments
4. Customer Touchpoints: Recognise the different touchpoints customers are accessing and blend teams together if needed, to successfully serve customers through these touchpoints
5. Motivate Staff: To encourage this, find new and innovative ways to bring your product to life.

Final Thoughts on the Customer Experience Transformation Journey

For organisations to move forward, they need to embrace customer experience transformations.

Employee engagement and digital transformation is all part of this journey.