Companies and organizations build relationships with their customers through a series of events and communications. These strings of interactions are categorized as a customer journey and every customer’s journey is unique. Key to this concept is customizing the journey for each individual participant.
Creating unique customer journeys often means using a variety of communication management tools. For example, a marketing department might make use of marketing automation software or a customer experience platform to manage campaigns. Meanwhile, a customer service department might use a customer communication management (CCM) solution to organize and orchestrate individualized customer engagements.
Companies and organizations will need to create a wide array of individualized customer journeys based on a spectrum of variables. Not only should these customer journeys be designed with a personalized human touch, but they should also be systematically improved upon (think: agile development applied to customer experience management).
To accomplish this, customer journeys need to be regularly audited. The audit itself must be detailed and comprehensive and should consist of at least two steps:
- First and foremost (and this is extremely critical): document each customer journey in detail.
- The second step, more broadly, is to rank the value of different customer journeys from both the customers’ and organization’s perspectives.
Auditing every aspect of customer interaction leads to personalized customer journeys.
Evaluating CCM and the Customer Journey
Prioritizing customer journeys follows defining and ranking the value of each. In other words, organizations must determine how likely that customer journey will resolve in a revenue-based action such as a purchase. On the other hand, the company must understand and analyze the reasons behind the likelihood that the customer would leave a bad review or move on to a competitor after a bad experience on a specific journey.
After successfully auditing, documenting, and prioritizing each customer journey (both the good and bad), the organization can identify missed and/or new opportunities for additional customer interactions. Those “touchpoints” can then inspire the design of new communications, which can be partially or fully automated and seamlessly woven into the newly inspired customer journeys.
For example, Topdown helped a State Government Agency improve efficiency by 40% and reduce the error rate by 42% with the implementation of a custom CCM strategy. At the same time, the agency exponentially improved the customer experience by identifying a series of new touchpoints that provided transparency into some of the previously opaque organizational processes.
Many companies often overlook untapped opportunities like these for improving and accentuating customer journeys and customer communications by creating, nurturing and activating triggers and reminders.
In an insurance claim, for example, the carrier will often need to send the insured one or more forms requesting additional information with instructions to return and complete said form by a certain date. If that happens, the carrier can then send the insured an automated follow-up message informing the insured that the materials were received. Conversely, if a time-sensitive form has not been received by the provided deadline, then the CCM software can be configured to automatically send any number of reminders via the customer’s preferred, as well as alternative, channels.
Through integrations with your delivery tier, CCM systems can also manage emails that bounce-back, resend information through alternate channels, and automate customer communication actions that improve efficiency and enhance the customer journey.
Use CCM to Enhance Customer Journeys
CCM enhances the ability to personalize communications, automate processes, and provide transparency. By analyzing journeys and uncovering opportunities to facilitate the process, organizations can leverage the extensive CCM toolkit to help customers get what they want or need faster and with less effort, delivering a great experience that builds both customer loyalty and customer lifetime value.
Topdown helps you identify opportunities to improve your customer journeys by improving existing or adding new customer communications. Get in touch with Topdown today and start your journey to a better customer experience!
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