Fit for the Future – Consistency in Customer Experience or Nothing

Business services company, Grass Roots, recently hosted a half-day forum to give business professionals the opportunity to exchange views and contribute insights. The event, held in a corporate box at Wembley Stadium on 8th June, was entitled ‘Fit for the Future – Consistency in Customer Experience or Nothing’.

Specialists in customer service/relations/communications, guest experience and operational excellence discussed the challenges involved in creating consistency at the various points of customer contact. From the retail sector House of Fraser, Marks & Spencer, Monsoon Accessorize and New Look were represented. In addition delegates attended from Experian, Ford, Shell, InterContinental Hotel & Resorts and Mitchells & Butler.

Ian Luxford, Learning Services Director, Grass Roots, opened the forum by reviewing results from recent surveys published by Genesys and Retail Bulletin. The findings revealed that 90% of consumers now interact with providers across multi channels and that 44% say that “better human service” is the way to improve the cross-channel experience. Jennifer Kirkby, Director of Mutual Marketing, drew on her PhD Research in Relationship Marketing to give a thought-provoking talk around three key elements to a consistent experience:

• Cultural and brand consistency – across multi channels, media and different employees
• Emotional consistency – across the complete customer journey covering multi-channels
• Life-time conversational consistency – using the channels and media of the customer’s choice.

The forum agreed on several key issues to debate further, including how to balance cultural and operational consistency, before breaking out into smaller groups to share experiences. These discussions centred on ways to engage all employees to deliver a good customer experience, not just those on the front line. The workshop ended with the smaller groups coming back together to summarise their discussions and agree on solutions, which included:

• Gaining a better understanding of the benefits and costs of good and poor experiences through customer journey mapping and customer feedback at different stages of the journey
• ‘Talk not Tick’ – managing the achievement of KPI’s but, at the same time, ensuring employees still feel they can take the time to interact/engage with customers.

Dawn McCutcheon, Group Account Director, Learning and Measurement Services said: ‘The mix of people and industry sectors helped to make for some lively discussion. We were all happy to share best practice, as well as brainstorm new ideas. I’m sure everyone felt they could take something worthwhile from the day.’

Richard Crowe, Contact Centre Manager, Customer Services at Experian commented: ‘Great group size and location. Fantastic event for networking and sharing ideas.’