Happy Friday! ‘This week in CX’ brings you the latest roundup of industry news.This week, we’re looking at solutions to expedite digital expertise, research into attitudes towards digital experiences, and research into how businesses are adapted to hybrid working.

Plus, we have exclusive commentary from Medallia’s Eduardo Crespo on the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, and from Mahesh Ram, Head of Digital Customer Experience of Zoom.

Key news

  • Microsoft is investing in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Microsoft shared that the investment is “a multiyear, multibillion-dollar” one. It is cited to ‘accelerate AI breakthroughs to ensure these benefits are broadly shared with the world.’
  • Medallia has partnered with Schneider Electric. The partnership will remodel the way Schneider Electric captures, measures, and manages customer satisfaction. With a focus on customer centricity, Schneider Electric has found innovative ways to support customer journey and customer satisfaction efforts. They will redesign looking at customer journeys and how they optimise them with the introduction of personalised dashboards for employees. 
  • According to Forrester’s “Navigating The 2023 Downturn” research, the current global downturn will unfold in ways unlike any economic decline previously experienced. While prior recessions have followed a boom-bust cycle, the 2023 downturn immediately follows a pandemic that has already disrupted business models and forced organizations to pivot their business strategy. Additionally, multiple factors contribute to the complexity of this downturn, including inflation, energy costs, supply chain challenges, regional conflicts, and changing worker demographics. These factors will uniquely combine across regions and industries, ensuring that each country will experience it differently.

Quantum Metric introduces solution to expedite digital expertise

Named Atlas, it is a first-to-market structured and accelerated solution to answering the most critical business questions about an organisation’s digital experiences. It is powered by proprietary machine intelligence and mapping learnings from hundreds of leading brands and digital teams. Atlas provides outcome-driven insight that enables anyone to easily identify and respond to digital customer needs from day one. 

Atlas is a comprehensive library of pre-built industry guides within the Quantum Metric platform, providing a step-by-step approach to improving critical digital use cases through a tailored set of dashboards, metrics, anomaly detection, and alerts. A proven and structured approach to analysis, Atlas introduces the next evolution in the practices of Continuous Product Design. Digital teams can confidently define customer needs across any customer journey needs faster, regardless of their past experience with the Quantum Metric platform. 

According to Quantum Metric, the average enterprise leaves up to $220M on the table per year in inefficiencies, with digital teams taking up to four weeks to resolve digital issues or optimise experiences. With Atlas’ simplified approach, organisations can improve their efficiency by up to 90%, resolving issues in one to two days. 

The introduction of Atlas will transform other areas of the Quantum Metric platform including: 

  • Provide guided analysis on-site with Visible. Enable team members with Atlas insight with an intuitive entry point via Visible, which shows data in line with the site experience.
  • Use-case-driven navigation. Enhancing platform accessibility by organising the Atlas guide library by top use case categories and focus areas. 
  • Automated segmentation for deep analysis. Connecting users to deeper and more personalised analysis that supports outcome-driven results. 

New research – what is the attitude towards data-based digital experiences?

The survey, conducted by Pantheon and Hanover Research, asked more than 1,000 U.S. and U.K. consumers to share what they expect from their digital experiences. Consumers ranked the marketing strategies and missteps that most significantly impact brand trust, which 73% say is their biggest motivator to share first-party data. 

As marketers rapidly approach a cookieless digital world, the findings demonstrate that the ability to create frictionless digital experiences that build, cultivate, and protect customer trust is a competitive advantage. Below are some of the findings.

To avoid sharing personal data –

  • 48% say they use guest checkout in online transactions to avoid providing data
  • 48% of those who prefer generic communication say it’s because they don’t want to be tracked
  • 42% won’t create a user profile at all
  • 35% of Gen-Z consumers are willing to share their data with brands

As a response to negative digital interactions (experienced by 90% of respondents) – 

  • 51% stopped engaging with a brand altogether
  • 81% say they’re willing to grant second chances. 

Top digital complaints included – 

  • 52% being spammed with emails
  • 44% unhelpful customer service 
  • 41% issues with a brand’s website
  • 37% difficulty cancelling a subscription 
  • 32% inability to interact through their preferred communication method

Majority of UK businesses still ill-equipped for a hybrid working future

102 UK Contact Centre Directors and Managers took part in the online “How successfully has your contact centre embraced hybrid working?” market study. It was conducted by Pitch Market Surveys in partnership with the Welsh Contact Centre Forum, homeworking specialist Sensée, and SuccessKPI. 

78% said that, by November/December 2022, fewer than a quarter of their organisation’s contact centre advisers had returned to the office full time post lockdown. 66% believe that over half their advisers will be working from home (at least part of the time) by the end of 2023.

The most popular hybrid working model is currently flexible working between the home and office where employees decide where they work on any given day. This is as cited by 37% of respondents. 

The two main hybrid working issues were reported as – 

  • Pastoral care (68%) 
  • Communicating effectively (66%) 

The main benefits included 

  • Being happier and more productive employees (72%)
  • Lower carbon footprint (61%)
  • Additional business continuity (52%)
  • Traditional recruitment barriers removed (45%)

Under half (48%) of respondents think that their organisations have given Managers and Supervisors sufficient training and advice. This is in relation to managing, training and supporting their remote working teams.

Commentary: Zoom’s new chatbot solution

Zoom has announced Zoom Virtual Agent which is an intelligent conversational AI and chatbot solution that uses natural language processing and machine learning to accurately understand and instantly resolve issues for customers.

The technology will transform the way businesses assist their customers and employees. With Zoom Virtual Agent, organisations can deliver better, faster web and mobile support, helping leaders meet their customers’ ever-increasing expectations for outstanding service in a highly cost-effective way.

“With Zoom Virtual Agent, the next evolution of intelligent customer experiences is on the Zoom platform. Zoom Virtual Agent brings advanced capabilities and broader market coverage that encompasses both customer experience and employee experience, built with the security, scalability, reliability, AI expertise and deep integrations that come with the Zoom platform. Zoom Virtual Agent uses advanced AI to understand customer intent, then guide the customer on the ideal journey, whether that’s self-service resolution or a smooth handoff to the right contact centre agent with context. As always, the focus remains on delivering more effortless and efficient customer experience“

– Mahesh Ram, Head of Digital Customer Experience at Zoom

Commentary: Medallia on UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI)

The UK Customer Service Institute has this week released the results of the bi-annual UK Customer Satisfaction Index. The UKCSI is a national benchmark of customer satisfaction covering 281 organisations or organisation types across 13 sectors. The UKCSI score is based on how customers rate organisations across 26 measures covering satisfaction with transactional experiences as well as broader relationship needs. 

The January 2023 Index reports a minor decline in average customer satisfaction. The decline is of 0.7 points to 77.7 (out of 100). The utilities sector saw the biggest fall in ratings this year. It saw a drop of 2.8 points compared to January 2022, and its lowest score in eight years.

Despite the decline in ratings, the report makes clear the positive impact of customer care during the economic difficulties. Where customers had been approached by a company offering help or advice to manage the cost of living, 75% said their levels of trust in the company had increased. Over a third of customers surveyed said they would be willing to pay more to guarantee excellent customer service. This is despite new mindful spending.

“The latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index serves as a wake-up call for organisations across the private and public sectors. While results indicate only a marginal decline in overall average ratings, more organisations saw their ratings fall than rise. [This] suggests that customer satisfaction is hanging on the edge of a precipice.  

“In our experience, lasting loyalty is built when companies rise to the occasion of meeting customers during trying times. To that end, organisations looking for a unique competitive differentiator must cultivate deeper emotional connections with their customers. Since that was shown to be one of the biggest separating factors between leaders and the laggards. The use of technology is critical here and can rapidly close gaps in companies’ understanding of how customers feel ‘in the moment’.

“Now is the time to act. The warning shot has been fired and only time will tell if organisations pay heed to its signal or chance customers voting with their feet.”

-Eduardo Crespo, General Manager & SVP, UK&I and MEA at Medallia

Thanks for tuning into CXM’s weekly roundup of industry news. Check back next Friday for the latest updates of the week!

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