Customer Experience Trends Of 2013… So Far

by | Apr 7, 2013 | Uncategorized

With the first half of 2013 almost at a close, we’d like to take this opportunity to inform our clients of the changes and innovations happening in the Customer Experience Industry.

We’ve made a concerted drive to add our own brand of Interact RDT knowledge and expertise to the CX conferences taking place this year.

So far we’ve had the pleasure of attending, exhibiting and co-sponsoring the following events:

International Customer Experience World (ICEW) Conference:

The ICEW took place on the 12th and 13th of March at the Maslow Hotel in Sandton. Delegates were treated to a host of insightful local and international speakers, sharing their expertise in the customer experience Arena.

There was a concentrated focus on explaining and unpacking the concept of customer experience, with a number of interesting case studies, as well as advice and methods of implementation.

CEM Africa Summit: 

From the 24th to the 25th of April, we were at the Upper East Side Hotel in Cape Town for the Customer Experience Management Africa Summit (CEM Africa).

It brought together the leaders in technology and enterprise solutions that equip organisations to deliver better, stronger and more consistent customer experiences. 

Emerging CX trends… 

After both conferences had passed, Interact RDT Managing Director Gary Greenfield had this to say: “Planning a customer experience is critical. It was clear to me that companies who are truly grasping the concept of customer experience are the ones who have experience built into the DNA of their organisations, and written into their founding principles”.

He also added that, going forward, a concerted focus needs to be placed on keeping the entrepreneurial spirit of a business alive. The most successful customer experience cases are always led by the CEO of a company. In fact, one of the key take-aways was that it is extremely difficult to maintain consistency and a clear customer experience when an organisation is split into separately managed and owned divisions.

Another area of concern was the emphasis that companies place on managing experience using social media and the risk regarding the amount of voice social media is getting. Gary had this to say on the subject, “When Customer feedback isn’t integrated into the right channels; it creates unrealistic expectations, inconsistent delivery – and it diverts focus from the core channels in which it should occur, which in turn works to discredit the traditional channels where customer feedback should happen”.

He cautioned that “If your feedback and experience strategies aren’t working in your existing channels, companies shouldn’t rely on social media to ‘fix’ this issue, as it will only fragment the experience further”.

Finally, and perhaps the most important companies that adopt a clear, well defined strategy for customer experience across all their touch points have a far better likelihood of growing customer experience than those that are trying to perform elabourate and often unsustainable gestures to customers.

Organisations should this in mind when planning and implementing customer experience, and remember to keep it simple.

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