Using Uniqueness to improve your customer relations
In today's world, where customer experience (CX) sits at the heart of business strategy, it’s crucial to recognize and understand the diversity and uniqueness of each company. Reflecting the complex and multi-dimensional reality of the current market, every brand operates within its own context, shaped by its history, size, business model, market vision and individual challenges. This uniqueness steers how it approaches customer relations, and whether it thinks and acts globally, prioritizes a local approach, and or adopts a mixed strategy, with services tailored for individual countries.
For a long time, Konecta has guided brands through the complexities of customer relations, recognizing that one size does not fit all and demonstrating how end-customers’ different perceptions of best practice should influence their management. Through three examples, we illustrate the importance for brands of collaborating with a partner who not only understands the specifics of different markets but also has the operational capabilities and talent to respond to them effectively. Whether it's for a universal management approach or adapting to local specifics, the understanding of these variations is crucial for the development of enduring customer relationships.
Example 1: channel usage and preferences
It’s not ‘new’ news that customers have different preferences in terms of contact channels, nor that these change. Even so, the pace of change and the variance from market to market can be dazzling, with brands’ own capabilities not engineered to adapt.
While voice has traditionally held the majority share in the outsourced CXM market (comprising 74% in 2022, as opposed to 12% for chat), Everest predicts significant growth in non-voice channels, particularly chat and social media. This trend is largely driven by the preferences of millennials and Gen Z who favor non-voice communication channels.
This is resulting in high digital channel growth, for instance in the use of WhatsApp in CXM, especially in Latam, with Brazil and Mexico in the top 5 countries. Anticipating customer expectations, we have assisted clients in key sectors globally to update their customer relationship management:
- In both Latam and Europe, we have deployed WhatsApp solutions in inbound and outbound customer support, assisting clients in multiple sectors to capitalize on its widespread use and immediacy.
- In France, we have helped clients in the retail and e-commerce sectors to enhance sales and customer services, including claims management, through WhatsApp's direct and versatile communication capabilities.
- In Mexico, we collaborated with a public sector client to facilitate sales services, tapping into the country's high engagement rates with the platform.
Through this creative utilization of WhatsApp, our team not only enables brands to align with end-customers' expectations but also empowers them to leverage the platform's strengths - such as its high open rates (70-90% vs emails at 15%), versatility permitted by multimedia content, and the potential for automation via a chatbot with the option to escalate to an agent.
Example 2: expectations on language provision
Language is a key factor in CX, with almost half (48%) of consumers believing that an agent’s ability to communicate in the consumer’s native language is the most crucial quality for authenticity in customer service. It’s a key point for brands to bear in mind when 75% of consumers in the same study said that ‘authentic’ customer care experiences are important to them.
But language provision alone may not be sufficient to win the hearts and minds of end-customers. In some markets, such as the UK, there may also be preferences around local accents, requiring brands and their CX providers to achieve a nuanced blend of offshoring/ nearshoring/ onshoring to meet expectations. In written channels too, there are high customer expectations around native language provision, fluency and excellence.
Konecta, with our global presence and local understanding, answers these needs through our effective bestshoring solutions and network of multilingual hubs. We are also harnessing the power of generative AI to help brands improve on language provision.
For example, one of the early use cases being developed by the Konecta Gen AI Use Case Factory is a client-centric Multilingual Spell Checker, which offers huge benefits over traditional dictionary- and rule-based spellcheck methods. Its use by a telco client, which operates across different countries in Europe and interacts with customers in multiple languages, resulted in:
- Improvements in average handling times (AHTs) and average operation times
- Higher customer satisfaction and loyalty, resulting from the improved quality of communications received.
Example 3: demand for self-service options
If you go back a few years, brands’ adoption of automation and provision of self-service options was often motivated by their efficiency goals; now, it’s often driven by consumer preferences. CX research tells us that more than three-quarters (77%) of customers have a more positive perception of brands that offer them self-service options and 81% want businesses to provide more self-service opportunities.
However, look deeper into the demographics, and the appetite for self-service may not be universal - or may be growing at different speeds. A 2023 study asked US consumers which solution they preferred to help solve a problem with a company or brand: phone or digital self-service. While 48% of Gen Z consumers expressed a preference for self-service, only 18% of Boomer generation respondents would have chosen it.
It’s vital, therefore, that companies and their providers are able to predict and cater for these preferences across different geographies and markets, in a manner that’s cost-effective to provide and doesn’t exclude other customers. It’s a tall order, especially when both consumer preferences and the available technology are fast-changing. Konecta is supporting hundreds of companies to navigate these issues, in multiple sectors and geographies, with just one example below:
In Latam, we worked with a global technology conglomerate to improve its post-sales customer experience across all service channels (including WhatsApp, livechat and email) with a strong emphasis on first-level support in order to reduce the need for customers to visit service centers. Through our solutions, we increased digital / self-service contact from 12% to approx 40%, accompanied by continuous improvement in CSAT scores. Critical to these results was our deep engagement with the client’s (and its customers’) unique needs, which enabled us to propose process flow modifications and service scripts, to leverage tools such as speech analytics, and to simplify processes between distributors, service centers and the end-customer. By understanding the client’s and its customers’ uniqueness, we helped them navigate the switch to digital / self-service options, in a way that improved response times, satisfaction and brand perception.
Making it happen
The three areas above - channel usage, language provision, and demand for self-service - have all been shown to impact consumers’ choice of brands and to vary widely across geographies and generations, meaning that it’s vital for companies in every sector to get them right.
With each of these core areas in customer management, our teams at Konecta have demonstrated their ability to understand the different contexts that face each client - whether their’ focus is local, regional or global. Not only do we develop data-driven solutions that empower their growth, we also ensure these solutions integrate seamlessly into their processes and systems.
To do so, we rely on our many strengths: our global yet local presence, our access to talent and language abilities, our partnerships with leading technology providers, our ability to innovate, including in AI and Gen AI, and our delivery of operational excellence and continuous improvement.
And there’s one other crucial element too: our willingness to listen to you and understand your own uniqueness. To start the conversation, get in touch!
