Happy Friday! We’re bringing you the latest roundup of industry news. This week, we’re looking at Cisco’s newest report on consumer privacy, new tools to enhance customer service calls within the call and contact centre industries, Optimizely’s new tool for customer personalisation, and the latest updates from the cost-of-living crisis’ business impacts.
Key news
- In case you missed it – CXM have launched our very first free printed and digital publication this week! This is the first issue of our annually released ‘CXM Review’, this edition being titled ‘The New Era in CX: Tapping into the Unknown’. We are beyond proud of it, and feel so honoured to have this opportunity and chance to finally place it in your hands to read and enjoy❤️
- On Wednesday 12th October, Awards International hosted the iconic UK Customer Experience Awards, live in London Wembley Stadium for the first time since 2019! The editorial team were lucky to attend and promote CXM Review, handing out copies to judges and finalists. You can check out all of our posts on LinkedIn (where we recently hit 20,000 followers! Thank you all!) Huge congratulations to all finalists and winners?
- In a new partnership announcement, Cisco and Microsoft will soon offer the ability to run Microsoft Teams natively on Cisco Room and Desk devices Certified for Microsoft Teams. There is also the option to select Teams as the default experience. Cisco will become a partner in the Certified for Microsoft Teams program for the first time.
- Food delivery company Deliveroo has announced that they will now be using buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service provider, Klarna. While BNPL services are on the rise, this decision is coming under fire from personal finance expert Tara Flynn from Choose Wisely, who commented “Getting yourself into debt over a meal that’s gone in 15 minutes isn’t worth it. I think it’s irresponsible for Deliveroo to offer this as an option, and need to seriously reconsider this move ASAP.” What do you think? Let us know on LinkedIn or email!
- Sheffield-based contact centre, CC33, celebrated this week’s World Mental Health Day (Monday 10th October) by providing trained mental health aiders to provide support for their staff. This follows their wellbeing benefits of a ‘505’ breakout area, ‘Zen’ quiet area to relax, on-site barber for male staff to talk, and a new wellbeing hub. Brilliantly necessary work which we can all try to implement too!
Cisco report reveals consumer demand for more transparency from businesses
Concerns over organisation’s usage of their consumer’s personal data is an ever rising concern, especially in recent years. The Cisco 2022 Consumer Privacy Survey reveals that consumers want more transparency on how their personal data is used and protected.
This year, 81 percent of respondents agreed that the way an organization treats personal data is indicative of how it views and respects its customers – the highest percentage since Cisco began tracking it in 2019. The survey also showed that while, in theory, consumers are supportive of AI (54% are willing to share their data to improve AI products), 65% have lost trust in organisations due to their use of AI.
In response to the erosion of trust in organisations’ ability to protect data, many consumers are taking action to better protect their data, including:
- 76 percent say they would not buy from a company who they do not trust with their data
- 37 percent indicated they had indeed switched providers over data privacy practices
- 53 percent say they manage their cookie settings from a website before accepting
- 46 percent of those with a home listening device say they turn it off regularly to protect their privacy
More than half of survey respondents said national or local government should play the primary role when it comes to protecting consumers data. Many consumers do not trust private companies to be responsible with personal data on their own accord.
As governments and organisations continue to demand protections on data transferred outside their national borders, more are putting in place data localisation requirements, demanding data to be physically stored in the country or region where it was collected. Yet data localisation comes at a price. The Cisco 2022 Data Privacy Benchmark reported that 88% of surveyed organisations experience significant additional operational costs due to data localisation.
“Organisations need to explain their data practices in simple terms and make them readily available so that customers and users can understand what is going on with their data. It is not just legally required; trust depends on it”
– Harvey Jang, Cisco Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer.
IRIS Clarity creating new tools to enhance customer service calls
Ascensos has partnered with IRIS Audio Technologies, the team behind the AI-powered voice isolation app, IRIS Clarity. With IRIS Clarity’s technology, Ascensos will eliminate distracting background noise on customer service calls to improve the overall customer experience, employee wellbeing, productivity, and performance.
The AI-powered software moves distracting background noise from VoIP and customer calls, integrating seamlessly with existing CCaaS and UCaaS platforms. Its bi-directional functionality benefits both the agent and the customer by eliminating noise on both sides of a call, improving focus, engagement, and wellbeing, and bringing control to often uncontrollable auditory environments.
“Background noise has always been a frustration for both advisors and customers on customer service calls, as they rarely take place in a controlled environment. Providing our colleagues with the right tools to be effective in their role has always been a critical consideration for us. Clear communication between a customer and an advisor means everything in our line of work, and what could be better than a solution with proven ability to achieve that. Our advisors want to do a great job in helping to deliver the right outcomes for customers quickly, and anything that makes that easier will have a positive impact on customer and employee satisfaction, as well as benefiting the long term mental health and wellbeing of our staff.”
– John Devlin, Co-founder and CEO of Ascensos
This a great innovation for the call centre industry, and will aim to improve the level of customer service. We wonder how this great software can be implemented into other businesses and services. What do you think?
Optimizely introduces Real-Time Segmentation to enhance customer personalisation
Real-Time Segmentation integrates across all Optimizely products and leverages “fresh data” to reflect the true state of an audience. It allows marketers to segment customers in the moment of engagement to deliver highly-relevant, personalised digital experiences.
This approach eliminates data refresh intervals that often result in delayed customer insight. Using a streaming and on-demand approach that enables extremely low data latency, customer data is guaranteed to be of the moment.
Customer expectations for exceptional, consistent digital experiences across all channels have increased dramatically. Now, consumers don’t just want personalisation, they demand it. Recent industry data found that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. It also found that the companies that excel at personalisation generate 40% more revenue. Unfortunately, many brands continue to struggle with delivering true value through personalisation efforts.
Real-Time Segmentation enables next-generation personalisation that is relational, observant, and informative. Driven by assets, behaviours, and customer attributes, customer messaging comes across as helpful rather than pushy or superfluous.
“Too often, a brand will deliver a first-time purchase discount code a few minutes after the first purchase has been made. This can be incredibly frustrating as a consumer. Real-Time Segmentation empowers brands to not only be more timely, but also more confident in their messaging. It takes into account that behind every data set is a human being, and creates real-time engagements that slowly build customer affinity and loyalty.”
– Justin Anovick, Chief Product Officer at Optimizely
The product works across Optimizely’s offerings to enable a new level of precision and confidence for marketers and digital leaders. Using first party data, brands can deeply personalise customer engagement, content and offers.
Cost-of-living crisis updates: customer and business impacts
Here’s the latest updates of the cost-of-living crisis on businesses and customers, how they are being impacted and predictions of the impact.
The impact of charging customers for returning goods
New research, The State of Operations Experience Management Study Series 2022, has revealed that, in spite of the current economic climate and its impact on consumers, 25% of leading brands, such as Zara and Boohoo, are now charging shoppers to return purchases they have made online.
Of those consumers being charged for making a return, the average cost is £3.53 and it takes an average of nine days for refunds to be processed.
“For consumers and retailers alike, returns continue to be one of the biggest pain points when it comes to online shopping. Failure to have the right processes and policies in place can mean the difference between a customer buying from a brand or competitor which retailers must take note of in the current economic environment. With the upcoming peak shopping season sitting against a backdrop of rising costs and reduced spending, it is more important than ever to give shoppers a seamless and positive returns experience.”
– Tobias Buxhoidt, Founder and CEO of parcelLab
The cost-of-living crisis is a tough time of adjustment and financial issues for everyone. While the returns charges are understandable on a business standpoint, we must consider our consumers’ feelings and abilities to do this. Especially those vulnerable customers on much lower salaries and living incomes, that £3 charge for a return could mean the difference between whether they eat a meal or not.
This is also a scary factor for consumers to consider in the lead-up to Christmas. This festive period will be a trickier one than usual anyway. The added pressure of making sure they get a gift perfect so that it does not need to be returned. The customer experience and whether they will stick with a brand must be considered here.
Royal Mail to cut up to 10,000 jobs
The UK’s primary parcel and delivery service, Royal Mail have revealed plans to cut 6,000 full-time frontline roles in delivery and processing by next March and will reduce its headcount by a total of around 10,000 by next August. The postal service said it expected to have £350m in losses by the end of the year, blaming industrial action and the ongoing decline of parcel volumes. The announcement came a day after Royal Mail workers staged a 24-hour strike over pay and conditions, the latest in an ongoing dispute.
The firm said the move is in response to the ‘impact of industrial action, delays in delivering agreed productivity improvements and lower parcel volumes’.
It said it is seeking short-term cost efficiencies through the planned reduction of 5,000 full-time equivalent roles by March and around 10,000 by August. This is expected to require between 5,000-6,000 redundancies by August.
This is yet another consequence of the current financial climate, as well as current social issues. Employees are becoming affected too as they will have to suffer job losses during this tough time.
Thanks for tuning into CXM’s weekly roundup of industry news. Check back next Friday for the latest updates of the week!