Earlier this year at the Customer Strategies and Technology Summit in London, Gartner introduced its latest study on the customer experience strategies of leading global businesses. “The study examines what CX projects have been carried out in 2014 and what projects are being worked on in 2015. This provides a great overview of how things are changing in CX,” said Nick Inglebrecht, research director at Gartner.
So What’s Changing for CX?
Over one-third of the survey participants said their customer experience improvement projects in 2014 involved significant changes to their business model related to the way the customer interacts with the organization. The biggest focus was on programs to improve the collection and analysis of customer feedback.
On average, the organizations that were surveyed implemented 5.7 projects in 2014. Of these, the most frequently cited projects were ‘capturing the voice of the customer’ followed by reconfiguring customer processes and implementing self-service and tools for other business processes.
The leading CX priorities for 2015 were stated to be projects aimed at improving consistency across multiple channels and delivering on the mission of being a more unified organization. Survey responses revealed that the top three CX projects planned for 2015 are related to:
- Developing self-service solutions
- Multichannel orchestration activities
- Collecting and analyzing customer feedback
“Not all business model changes are of equal significance, but there appears to be a recognition among the more mature organizations that CX projects span organizational boundaries and fundamentally affect the way the organization operates,” Ingelbrecht stated.
Moving Beyond the Survey
“As a result [of the survey findings], Gartner predicts that by 2018, more than 50% of organizations will implement significant business model changes in their efforts to improve customer experience,” according to the Gartner report.
As the market leader in customer experience testing, discovery and monitoring, Cyara is witnessing the CX changes cited by Gartner from the front lines as we work with our customers to transform their organizations.
Here’s how Cyara is responding with capabilities that enable our customers to make significant changes to their business models and improve the customer experience:
- Trend: Developing Self-Service Solutions
Cyara Crawler addresses the need of organizations to enable self-service more rapidly than every before. As the first automated discovery tool that ‘crawls’ and maps an IVR, creating an interactive map of call flows and documentation, Crawler is a game changer for CX. A leading UK information and communications service provider turned to Crawler when they acquired responsibility for a very large DTMF IVR, which literally had no documentation. Using Crawler, they rapidly mapped this IVR and produced a reference baseline of test cases that were then imported into the Cyara Platform. Using these test cases, the customer will be able to make changes to this IVR in the future with minimal risk because they now know the call flows and options. Find out more about Crawler here. - Trend: Multichannel Orchestration
Cyara Chat Testing, which was recently recognized with a TMC Speech Technology Excellence Award, helps customers to bridge the gap between self-service and assisted calls with a well-executed web chat experience. A large retail customer in the United States used Chat Testing to simulate peak load prior to a major product launch to ensure that their chat application could handle the expected volume. Multichannel orchestration requires the ability to test and optimize all channels, which is possible using Cyara’s automated testing and monitoring. - Trend: Collecting and Analyzing Customer Feedback
Although not yet available, Cyara is working with other technology leaders to collect and analyze customer feedback to add more insight into the customer experience. “We are excited about the opportunities available to provide actionable insights for customer engagement, and we are working to make this a reality for Cyara customers in the future,” said Alok Kulkarni, CEO, Cyara, commenting on this trend.
Conclusion
If anything, the Gartner research makes it clear that customer experience improvements are complex. “There is no silver bullet that will, by itself, improve the overall experience. But the combination of projects, if implemented well, can cumulatively contribute to the improvement of an organization’s customer experiences,” Ingelbrecht stated.
If you are looking for a partner to take your CX into the future, you can count on Cyara and the market-leading Cyara Platform, the most comprehensive omni-channel customer experience testing, discovery and monitoring platform. Find out more about Cyara’s revolutionary new product for IVR discovery, Cyara Crawler. Every day, millions of flawless customer interactions are delivered by some of the most recognizable brands in the world utilizing the Cyara Platform. How can Cyara help you? Contact Cyara today.