Getting the experience right, digitally
…When customer service goes online
We have truly gone digital. If this is news to you, you might have arrived here on this Planet just within the past few minutes. Because if you have spent even just half an hour here, you definitely might have found out that we are truly online. We are now living in an all-digital world. From how we get what we eat, learn, work, play, communicate, commute, live, and even love, there is always a digital option we can fall on. Even the way we worship our Maker has gone digital. I am convinced that the days are fast approaching when people will live their entire lives online, with absolutely no need to go outside—except maybe to go get some rays of sun on their skins.
Quite recently, we are even seen entire sovereign nations being moved online. Unbelievable but true. In recent times, the island nation of Tuvalu, quite unsure of its physical existence in some decades to come, has decide to recreate its existence online. The archipelago of nine islands snuggled between Australia and Hawaii is threatened by rising sea levels and might be totally submerged by the end of this century. There are reports that approximately 40% of its capital is already under water.
To ensure that the country is still around even when it has no physical land to call its own, the government of Tuvalu announced plans in November 2022 to create a digitised version of the country. The plan is to create a virtual version of the country in the Metaverse, making use of augmented and virtual reality to help citizens continue to interact with the government. The government will be able to provide administrative and consular services online with this arrangement. Citizens can apply for passports and get visas online without having to visit a physical structure. Interesting, if you ask me.
Interestingly, others are following suit. For instance, reports have it that the South Korean capital, Seoul and the island nation of Barbados are also interested in obtaining full online existence. Even with countries that are not sinking and are sure to be around even beyond this century, there are many state-sanctioned services that are online. Citizens are currently filing their tax returns, paying bills and making requests online.
If entire nations are going online to ensure their continued existence, it is little wonder that businesses are now looking to the virtual world as the new frontier. Unsurprisingly, we now have the terminology, Digital Customer Experience. This refers to the sum of all the experiences consumers have when they interact with a business across digital channels.
Digital channels in this case include channels like online chat, email, text (SMS), social media, messaging apps, and many more including digitally-connected environments like Internet of Things (IoT) and voice-activated devices. Customers speaking to sleek devices that regulate their thermostats, turn on or off their television sets and create a new playlist are all having a digital experience. Customers with security set-ups at home that allow then to view their homes via their mobile devices are also having a digital experience. To put it simply, anytime a customer engages with a brand through the internet, that customer is having a digital experience.
It is no more a luxury for a business to have a digital existence and to engage its customers digitally. It is a must. When those who will make you money are online, you cannot be offline. When those you want to interact with are spending a greater percentage of their waking hours online, how can you afford to stay offline? When good money is being spent online, you cannot afford to stay offline. It will be too costly. It therefore goes without saying that pretty soon, a majority of customer experiences will be delivered through these digital, online channels.
Interestingly, the physical experience might not be disappearing as fast as others might have predicted. Customers still want to go out and have a shopping experience in person. Customers still want to see, smell, touch and pack their own groceries before they pay for it. If the physical shopping experience is not going anywhere, will that not affect the drive towards going digital? Apparently, not.
Smart businesses are finding ways of combining both physical shopping experience with a digital component in a seamless whole. American multinational e-commerce giant, Amazon is leading the way with its Amazon Go shops. In these ultra-modern outlets, customers are able to pick their choice of wares from the shelves but they do not join queues to pay. They just walk out. Technology in place ensure that the items are scanned as they are picked and the total cost settled remotely. Some other retail giants are ensuring that customers are able to order online and then walk into shops to pick their orders without having to join long queues. From the looks of it, the physical and digital experiences will continue to co-exist and as they do, the lines will continue to blur.
It has even been argued by some that customers have become so used to moving from the online to the physical that there is really no difference for the customer. A customer of today wanting to make a purchase, will first go online to make some enquiries and to gather the necessary information. With that information, the customer can opt to visit a physical outlet or might even order online and have the item delivered.
While for some businesses, the digital experience might only be via the company’s website; for other businesses, the digital experience for customers might involve everything from mobile apps, chat bots, social media, and any other channels that are virtual in nature. For those businesses that have customers shopping from their websites and via mobile apps, the digital experience is even more crucial.
But going online in no way means that the rules of excellent service experience change. Just as it is with the physical experience, so it is with the digital experience. The feelings and emotions customers walk away with still goes a long way to determine how customers rate the experience, whether physically or virtually. The importance of emotions in the customer experience stays as important digitally as it does physically.
Every business must ensure that any part of the experience that is cumbersome, boring and frustrating is expunged with alacrity. This is to ensure that the digital experience is always seamless, frictionless and painless. An app that takes forever to open will make the digital experience a living hell. A chatbot that has no clue about what the customer wants can frustrate the life out of the customer.
A website that makes navigating its pages a living hell for customers is an affront to excellent digital customer experience. There is a study that proves that the patience of 50% (i.e. half) of a business’ typical customers will log out with a mere 250 milliseconds delay in site load time. By the way, 250 milliseconds is a quarter of a second. It is critical that the digital experience leaves the customer wanting more.
As a matter of fact, the rules governing service experience become even more defined as the physical contact gives way to the digital experience. Whereas a front line employee has the benefit of facial expressions and other body language to make a judgment about a customer’s state of mind, that is totally missing in the online experience. Whereas the physical experience comes with advantages such as a sweet aroma, a pleasant sound and a pleasurable ambience, the digital experience is normally devoid of all that. Businesses are to prepare themselves well to serve customers well with the digital experience.
One of the challenges of creating the right digital experience is that customers come into the experience using various devices. This is so different from the typical physical experience where customers have just one shop, store, office or outlet to visit at any particular time. In the digital space, customers enter the experience through various gadgets. This means that their experiences would be dependent on the kind of device available to the customer. To get the digital experience right, the business must necessarily design the experiences to be excellent across whatever device a customer uses. For instance, those using wide screen devices should not be made to suffer more than those using smaller screen devices.
Additionally, the business must also design its experiences to be consistent across all its various digital platforms. This is what is referred to as the omnichannel approach. Those accessing the experience via an app should not have a different experience from those using the company’s website. Those chatting with a chatbot should not have a totally different experience from those going the FAQs on the company’s website. Those placing their orders online via the company’s website should have a similar experience to those ordering via the app.
It is expected of businesses to know the native language of each digital platform, especially social media platforms. This is to ensure that the business places the right communication on the right channel using the right approach. As surmised in the book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook!” every platform has its expected format—that is its native language. A right message using the wrong format will be a disaster on the right platform.
For instance, YouTube is essentially a video-sharing platform and therefore communication placed there might be in video formats. Twitter gives users just 280 characters to use in sending out messages. Therefore, a message with more than those number of characters will not be best as a tweet. It behoves on a business to ensure that it understands the platforms it uses to engage with its customers.