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Customer Experience in Asia: Awesome or Gruesome?
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Transcript of Customer Experience in Asia: Awesome or Gruesome?
AWESOME
GRUESOME
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IN ASIA
OR
A CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT ASIA 2013 SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT
While there is no doubt that delivering great customer service is key to a company‟s
success, trying to put the necessary processes, infrastructure and, most importantly, people
to deliver on that goal is another matter. The famous Sam Walton, founder of Walmart,
currently the biggest company on the planet, wouldn‟t even stop at “best” when it comes to
customer service.
In Asia, customer experience management certainly has a room for improvement. While
Asians are known for their hospitality, delivering a “legendary” customer experience requires
a lot more. The advent of technology and social media even complicates the service delivery
of many companies as it can serve as a double-edged sword.
In this Special Supplement for Customer Experience Management Asia happening on 2-3
October 2013 in Singapore, we dived deeper into the issue and obtained revealing insights
from some of the top the companies that can speak eloquently about the subject of
customer experience.
Read on to find out how great customer service is linked to a company‟s profitability and
how Asian companies can build a genuine customer-centric organisation.
Darwin Jayson Mariano
IQPC Worldwide
“The goal, as a company, is to have customer service that is not just the best,
but legendary.” – Sam Walton, Founder of Walmart
In Asia, the human interaction needs continue to
be fairly large and ultimately, the level of service
depends on the last person on the block in the
customer-facing channels. - Ratan Kesh, HDFC Bank
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
Customer Experience Trends for 2013 10
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
1 A knowledgeable representative and a timely response are the
most valuable components of a great service experience.
Hotels, online retailers, and banks provide the best customer
service experiences.
Live agent remains the preferred interaction type, followed by
email and then there is a significant drop to web chat, etc.
(this varies by age demographic)
Historical information access is deemed the most valuable
feature of an interaction.
Not being able to understand the agent is rated as the most
frustrating part of an interaction.
Customers are more willing to use social media to praise a
good service experience vs. complaining about a poor
experience.
Customers aren‟t willing to pay extra for higher level service.
The ability to get a scheduled call‐back was the most desired
mobile application functionality.
The most valuable technical service to offer customers is
“an easy way to provide feedback”.
Comprehensive reporting and analytics is the top feature
desired by contact center professionals.
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10
Source: Interactive Intelligence Customer Experience Research Study 2013
Be the customer. Don’t lose sight of that,
and don’t step away from what your
customers live and breathe.
- Michael Mucci, eBay
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
BUILDING A CUSTOMER-
CENTRIC ORGANISATION
With the advancement in technology and liberalization of knowledge, the shifting
balance of power has never been more imminent. Today, consumers have the power to
literally, make or break an organization. Companies that are at the forefront of
providing a great customer experience are the ones who usually stay on top. How does
Asia fare in the field of customer experience management? How can technology
improve (or destroy) a company‟s customer service delivery? Four experts in the field of
customer experience management who will be speaking at the coming Customer
Experience Management Asia 2013 shared their insights on the matter.
Louise has deep experience in financial services
across sales, training, marketing, customer value
propositions, brand and strategy. She heads up
the Customer Experience team and works right
across the enterprise to engage the business in
the benefits of the customer-centred thinking and
design
Louise Long
Head of Customer Experience,
National Australia Bank
Michael Mucci
Sr. APAC Regional Business Analyst
eBay
Michael has three years‟ experience in the
customer services industry specializing in self-
service strategy for the APAC region. This is
supplemented with a background in reporting,
analytics and project management. His role now
includes support for eBay‟s global Mobile
experience locally in APAC.
HDFC Bank is the second largest Private Sector
Bank in India and Ratan‟s job entails framing and
executing Customer Service and Quality Strategy
for the bank. He leads a team of Lean Sigma
MBBs responsible to achieve Service Excellence
and to enable the bank in providing a wide range
of financial products and services to its 30 million
customers in a cost effective manner.
Ratan Kesh
Senior Vice President and Head of
Service Quality, HDFC Bank
Mr. Lutfi Al Shukaili
VP - Head of Business Excellence
Ajman Bank
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
Lutfi is responsible for positioning Ajman Bank as
a market leader in service quality across all
customer touch points by establishing, designing
and implementing Customer Experience
strategies and frameworks. Prior to this, he was
the Head of Service Quality and Performance
Development at Dubai Bank, responsible for
leading the bank to receive “Best Islamic and
Most Improved Bank Award”
Darwin Jayson Mariano: How does Asia compare
with more advanced regions like US or Europe in
the field of customer experience management? In
which areas do you think Asia needs some
improvement?
Louise Long: Answering on the basis of Australia
compared to US and Europe, I think that in some
respects we have a way to go in the way we
regard and design customer experience. We still
think of customer experience as the efficient
management of our services. That is a view that is
“inside-out” not “outside-in”. An organisation
focusing on customer experience may still be
thinking about how efficiently (i.e., fast, low cost)
they manage complaints, or call centres, and not
how, we can better design the services that our
customers use based on the needs they meet.
Lutfi Al Shukaili: Generally speaking, Asia has
been ahead of the pack when it comes to
customer service, the airlines industry being a
good case in point. However, it is difficult to
generalize as there are significant variations
between the countries that make up Asia, Europe,
and US and between the different business
sectors. Additionally, whereas Asia has led in
terms of the human elements of service delivery,
there have been a couple of innovative firms in
the US and Europe that have been creative in
terms of leveraging aesthetics and technology to
enhance the overall customer experience. The
focus in Asia should mainly be on the emerging
markets where customer expectations are
increasing.
Ratan Kesh: Asian people in general are very
hospitable, more sensitive to human feelings but
surprisingly the general level of customer service
is not up to the mark as is observed in the US.
This is primarily due to lack of technology
adoption in Asian companies. The tech platforms
are improving in Asia but the end to end
integrated and the integrated view of various
platforms is lacking. Other problem is that
customers, in general, in the US have adopted
technology in a big way, thus eliminating the need
for human interface, thus making it easier for the
service providers. In Asia, the human interaction
needs continue to be fairly large and ultimately,
the level of service depends on the last person on
the block in the customer facing channels.
Training needs are huge and due to higher level
of attrition, there are more challenges in Asia.
Europe is somewhat similar to US but it is
believed that human behaviour / intention to
service is lacking among the large cross-section
of people which makes the level of service poorer
to US and even Asia, in some sense.
Michael Mucci: I think that in the realm of
customer service, the Asian market is more
complex. You have a lot of diverse cultures which
geographically may be near each other but are far
from similar. One of the biggest obstacles from a
global standpoint is to recognise that and see
that the subtleties in handling customers in each
of those markets are very different. Customer
experience management in Asia absolutely needs
improvement. It is something that we are in the
process of undertaking, looking at the APAC
region not as a whole but at each of its market
levels and further beyond – e-commerce in
particular. We are in a retail business and retail is
a very domestic experience. To capture that
experience, you need to recognise these
differences.
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
The focus in Asia should mainly be on the
emerging markets where customer expectations
are increasing.
- Mr. Lutfi Al Shukaili, Ajman Bank
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
Darwin Jayson Mariano: Let‟s talk about today‟s
multi-channel environment. Do you think it
creates more challenges or more opportunities –
and why?
Louise Long: “Multi-channel” is a not a customer-
centric concept, and therefore creates challenges
if we continue to label it as such. If by the term we
mean, “answering the problem” – how do we
allow our customers to interact with us in multiple
ways, and still provide a consistently good
experience, that is remembered and integrated
when they next interact? – then it is a great
opportunity.
Lutfi Al Shukaili: Multi-channel environment
creates more challenges as customers become
more fragmented and it becomes less clear which
channels and technologies to invest in.
Technological change is rapid and can be difficult
for some organizations to keep up with. This
environment can be mitigated and converted into
an opportunity provided a company truly
understands its customer segments and has up-
to-date information on their channel usage trends
and preferences – but many times that is not the
case, as few companies tend to be so customer-
oriented.
Ratan Kesh: Multi-Channel environment creates
both challenges and opportunities. Challenges
because the pace of technology development is
huge and the public in general (read: customers)
are adopting technology in a big way quite easily.
Social Media is catching up very fast. However,
for service providers, it is not as easy to design/
develop and implement new technology to cope
up with the multi-channel development. This
creates a mismatch leading to perceived gap in
service for a section of customers. Conversely,
multi-channel is an opportunity because it helps
understand customer behaviour in a much more
comprehensive manner, thus product
development and testing becomes easier. The
outcome of a new product or service launch is
available instantly instead of waiting for a longer
cycle as it used to be in the earlier days. Multi-
channel environment also helps identify which
customer likes which channel and thus the
marketing and service efforts can be sharpened
rather than making those “carpet bombing”
activities and hoping for the best possible
outcome.
Michael Mucci: I think currently it creates more
challenges only because I have yet to see a
company fully pre-execute on a multi-channel
offering. However, I see tremendous potential
there I believe it will continue to have tremendous
potential. Mobile, iPad, and tablets are the new
things. However, with the pace of technology,
these things also might be obsolete in a few years
replaced by Google glasses etc.
Darwin Jayson Mariano: In your industry, has
social media been beneficial in improving
customer experience? What are important
lessons have you learned in dealing with social
media?
Louise Long: Social media has been embraced by
some but not all of the Australian banks. NAB
(National Australia Bank) has been deliberate in
its use of social media to communicate change to
our customers, share our community activities,
illicit customer feedback, as well as respond to
complaints. Social media is only one of the ways
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
Organisation should only become
active in social media if it is prepared
for a two-way conversation with its
customers.
- Louise Long, National Australia Bank
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
our customers can interact with us where they are
in control and we need to remember that. The
evolving psychology of complaining through social
media (“it‟s the only way to get a good result”) is a
good example. Lessons learnt include that an
organisation should only become active in social
media if it is prepared for a two-way conversation
with its customers.
Lutfi Al Shukaili: Social media has become an
open channel for customers to share their
experiences with their service providers;
organizations should use the information and the
feedback to further enhance their proposition and
overall experience.
Ratan Kesh: In Indian banking industry, the
customers in the urban areas have adopted
social media to share opinion about banks‟
products and services. Considering that large
percentage of the conversation in social media is
negative (sharing poor experiences), the banks
have very little choice but to have a social media
strategy. We found great value in engaging
customers through social media and creating a
positive impact about bank‟s brand, products and
services. Some of the lessons learned include:
• Social media should be to listen and resolve
customer issues rather than to market products.
• Speed of response is the key
• Avoid putting anonymous bloggers/characters
to say planted “good feedback” about brands.
Customers can figure it out easily causing further
damage to brands.
Michael Mucci: Definitely beneficial. Absolutely!
As for the lessons learned, we haven‟t had any
detrimental and/or negative impact but we are
learning there is a lot of power in social media
and in spreading the word through online
mediums. The fear that most people seem to
have is quickly outweighed by loyal customers
defending the company – and we are seeing that
with ebay. It‟s a bit of a leap of faith.
Darwin Jayson Mariano: What‟s the best
“customer experience management” advice can
you give to other organisations out there?
Louise Long: Think about the values of the
company – does its DNA reflect a genuine desire
to create business value whilst doing the right
thing for the customer? How is that reflected in
its competitive strategies?
Do not try and „own‟ the customer experience in
an organisation – everyone who works for the
organisation owns it. Customer experience (or
customer-centricity) is a competency that needs
to be built into the culture, into the fabric of the
organisation; not another silo or function to be
managed.
Do try to improve the organisation‟s way of
working by considering the customer first – for
better, sustainable outcomes. Do think about
how it can achieve the same business value (and
improve it) by creating customer value as well.
Lutfi Al Shukaili: Understand and deliver what
your customers need. Customer experience
needs a solid foundation to grow and can only
truly flourish in an environment where the internal
customer (i.e. employee experience) is given
significant importance and attention. Attempts to
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
patch a poor external customer experience
without building a vibrant and positive
organizational culture where your employees feel
happy, secure, and inspired will only lead to short-
lived and limited gains.
Ratan Kesh: 1) Organisational structure for
customer experience management team plays a
critical role. It should have integrated umbrella
platform to: a) capture voice of customers
(through complaints handling team); b) Audit of
Services across customer facing channels and; c)
Business Process Improvement (BPI) team.
2) Never put target to reduce customer
complaints
3) “Managing the Tail” i.e handling the last 0.1%
exception is key to moving from Good to Great.
99.9% will be great experience but the last 0.1%
can cause tremendous damage to brand image
due to multi-channel environment and social
media platform.
Michael Mucci: Be the customer. Don‟t lose sight
of that, and don‟t step away from what your
customers live and breathe. The moment you do
that, that will be the moment your solutions will
be disconnected from what your customers want.
It‟s really about doing what the customer does.
BONUS VIDEO:
Real Customers‟
Experiences – the good,
the bad, the best
Click to watch the
4-minute video
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013, email [email protected] or call +65 6722 9388
KEY THEMES COVERED AT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT ASIA 2013 Building customer centric organizations and using them to drive business Excellence in branding and customer experience across various customer touch points Implementing a holistic customer experience management framework Capitalising on data analytics and big data
Building a customer-centric organization in today’s multi-channel environment to gain competitive advantage
www.customerexperienceasia.com
To attend Customer Experience Management Asia 2013 happening on 2-3 October in Singapore, call +65 6722 9388 or email [email protected]
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