“KPIs are the navigation tools that managers use to understand whether the business is on a successful voyage or whether it is veering off the prosperous path.” –Bernard Marr

In today’s digital age, delivering exceptional customer experience is crucial for businesses to thrive in competitive markets. While metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) have been commonly used to measure customer interactions, they have limitations in providing a complete understanding of the overall customer experience. Let us discuss why relying solely on metrics may cause outsourcing partners to miss important aspects of customer experience evaluation. 

Metrics such as average handle time, first call resolution, and customer satisfaction scores offer valuable insights into specific areas of customer interactions and performance. However, customer experience encompasses the totality of your social reputation experience, channel experience, product experience, security experience, and service experience.  The service experience is only a gateway to try to assess the overall customer experience.   

“To provide end-to-end customer satisfaction, organizations must take a more holistic approach to customer experience, embedding customer needs and expectations into every aspect of the organization—not just at the point where people are making a purchase.” –Jeff Catlin (Forbes) 

Unmasking the Customer Journey: Transcending Metrics and Navigating the Bigger Picture 

The contact center holds a wealth of valuable information regarding customer sentiment, providing deep insights into how customers feel about the products or services they interact with. This data serves as a powerful tool for businesses looking to transform their customer experience.  This is the basis for how the potential of the contact center extends far beyond its traditional role. 

In iCXeed, we see contact center teams differently.  With access to a wealth of customer data, the contact center transforms into a Customer Insights & Intelligence Centre, analyzing customer feedback, preferences, and pain points for business process innovation opportunities. In this way, the contact centre can become an Innovation Centre, encouraging the exploration of new ideas and approaches to enhance both the customer experience and operational processes. 

The knowledge and expertise within contact centers in servicing customer inquiries can tremendously accelerate the implementation of AI conversational designs that can offer customers a more efficient and effective experience. The idea is to understand what customers need from a contact center and then build those capabilities within AI to provide automated service so contact center team members can get the time and relief to focus on more complex problem-solving. 

This means looking at metrics differently in the contact center with measures that help gauge the effectiveness of moving interactions into digital channels, improvement of self-service solutions like AI, and eliminating volume from the contact center due to proactive process improvement.  It is about building a cognitive approach to optimizing the customer experience. 

“Identifying and measuring emotional motivators is complicated, because customers themselves may not even be aware of them. These sentiments are typically different from what customers say are the reasons they make brand choices and from the terms they use to describe their emotional responses to particular brands.” – Scott Magids, Alan Zorfas, Daniel Leemon (Harvard Business Review)

Seeing the Whole Picture: Unraveling the Total Customer Experience 

In a company’s journey of growth and success, they must tread carefully and not be blinded by the allure of the lowest cost to serve. The temptation to opt for higher quantity, lower-cost resources, often referred to as “higher quantity bums in lower-cost seats,” leads to customer frustration.  In many instances, this has led to the mechanization of human talent where decision-making is pre-determined and human customer support effectively becomes robotic with the sheer lack of empowerment to make a decision to truly empathize and help a customer.  AI offers an opportunity to create a win for both customers and employees.  Mechanical interactions can easily be carried out by AI allowing human talent to have the time to create connections with customers in more complex situations.   It is about returning authority to the human talent to truly help customers.   

And let us not be daunted by the notion that a contact center is merely a cost center. There exists a path to transform it into a value center – a place where innovation thrives, and customer-centricity reigns supreme. However, this transformation is not an effortless feat. It requires concerted effort, dedication, and above all, a paradigm shift from traditional contact center operating models.  It means leveraging technology like AI, Automation, and Analytics to work smarter in delivering more cognitive customer experiences.  It means reducing the workload in the contact center reacting to customer friction and instead shifting efforts to proactively create value for customers and helping a brand to grow.  These are the new metrics of success for your innovation center of excellence.   

Final Thoughts 

Exceptional customer experiences are vital for business success. While metrics and KPIs are commonly used to measure customer interactions, they have limitations in capturing the entire customer experience. Relying solely on traditional metrics may cause contact center operators to overlook critical aspects in driving customer experiences in the digital AI age. Embracing a broader perspective can transform the contact center into a hub of digital innovation. By aligning interactions with company values, orchestrating seamless digital experiences, and analyzing customer insights, businesses can nurture relationships, innovate, and thrive in competitive markets. It’s this journey toward value creation and digital excellence that paves the way for accelerated growth. 

Are you seeking fresh perspectives and alternative approaches to customer experience? It’s time to hear from a  business process innovator.   Learn more here.