Meeting the omnichannel challenge with Three and Samsung

Integrated omnichannel experience is now table stakes for any business worth its salt. If your customer is not receiving a joined-up experience across every touchpoint, they’ll see - and feel - the difference. What’s more, those experiences need to be personalized, responding to their individual preferences.

With those expectations set, it’s down to organizations to create, measure and continually improve their omnichannel operations, all while demonstrating the ROI of an excellent customer experience.

How best to do it?

The audience at X4 London were treated to a range of innovative answers thanks to an inspiring panel discussion. Ashling Williamson, Head of Service Experience at Three Ireland, was joined by Ross Perry, Samsung’s Senior Technology & Transformation Manager, and Michael Hardwick, Senior Customer Data & Growth Manager, also at Samsung.

They exchanged perspectives on the changing expectations of customers, the need to combine every stream of data for a better understanding of ROI, and how better digital experiences make it easier for contact center teams to avoid encountering frustrated customers.

3 things we learned from Three and Samsung:

1. Customer experience is as valuable as product and revenue

Customer experience is fundamental. “Experience value sits alongside monetary value and product value as a core part of a value proposition,” says Michael.

Customers expect you to know them and not have to repeat questions they already asked. Even this kind of minor friction can impact the customer experience.

Trust is how we build connections. We build it by being on time, delivering what we say we will, and doing that consistently. Doing it again and again adds up to customer lifetime value.

“We thought of good CX as hygiene,” says Ross. “But we see the tangible incremental benefits coming back to us going through the roof. We can show that because all our data is now connected.”

Digital is the first line, especially post-pandemic, and that’s where a lot of people form their vital first impressions. If that initial experience is negative, it bleeds through into their perception of offline channels too. When these customers make contact with an agent they are more quickly frustrated and it’s harder to get them through to the end of their journey.

2. Insights and actions must go hand in hand

The insights you deliver are only as powerful as the team that’s going to put them into action, says Ashling:

“Huge investment goes into listening, and that is where we started. But if you’re not taking action it’s not really worth anything. And to take action you need to get buy-in. I want our stakeholders not to be able to live without us.”

Michael has found value in listening and action being focused, rather than wide-ranging. His team targets areas they know need to be improved.

Using customer effort scores to measure progress, AB tests and ABC tests are used to put the insights from customer experience data into action, helping Samsung improve the online experience continuously.

This way, they have been able to change the direction of major digital channels away from strict corporate governance to something more intent-driven and customer focused. The improvements in customer effort scores are “really quite staggering.”

3. Demonstrating value means linking feedback to outcomes

There is a strong correlation between someone’s feedback, both in terms of the scores they give and the sentiment they express, and the likelihood that they will convert.

Samsung uses first party data sets. “We want to enrich our knowledge of every consumer in our database, from both CX and online streams, with our knowledge about the experiences they have had, and how that impacts their loyalty. That helps us make decisions about how we invest our resources,” says Michael.

Samsung uses aggregated data that links every piece of feedback left on our website to conversion events and AOV (average order value) events too.

Ashling’s team have empowered agents to reduce customer frustration. The Three Empower means selected frontline advisors are empowered to go above and beyond with things like credit refund and early upgrade. That has improved frontline attrition rates, and also increased NPS and C-SAT scores.