Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the Age of Experience issue of Workflow Quarterly.
Brands ignore experience design at their peril. Nearly half of consumers would switch brands after a single negative interaction, according to a recent customer experience survey by Qualtrics and ServiceNow, the publisher of Workflow Quarterly. Four out of 5 say they’ve switched brands in the past due to a poor experience.
Employees are equally sensitive to bad experiences. During the pandemic, 3 out of 5 customer service agents reported customers were getting ruder and more aggressive. The result: One in 5 thought about quitting their job every single week, according to Qualtrics research. That’s not sustainable for anyone or any business.
“Those results are highly correlated,” says Bruce Temkin, head of the XM Institute at Qualtrics, an enterprise software company that specializes in experience management. “Engaged employees create great experiences for customers, while happier customers tend to produce prouder and more engaged employees.”
Going forward, companies need to get much better at observing and anticipating what customers and employees need and want, not simply waiting for survey results to come in. “It’s how quickly we learn and change what we’re doing that’s really going to be important in the future,” Temkin adds.
With recent advances in natural language processing and related AI technologies, company call centers can automatically identify conversation topics and summarize key events during each call. These technologies can also help agents improve their performance by flagging specific behaviors such as empathy-building or cross-talk.
The future is one where technology allows customer service to be personalized at scale, producing happier customers and more productive, satisfied employees.
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Stuart Luman is the deputy editor of Workflow.