Human interaction provides real moments of truth in the customer experience journey
In the age where technology has empowered customers with so much information and choice, they have become more demanding in their expectations of brands. In fact, customers are more likely to switch service providers based on bad customer experience than product quality or price. It can also cost businesses five times as much to attract new customers than retain existing ones.
Despite this fact, the 2019 Dimension Data Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report shows that only 10.9% of organisations surveyed have promoter-level CX rating. This disconnect in customer experience aspirations and the customer’s reality is due to various factors. Speaking at the recent Customer 360 Africa 2019 event, Darren Arnold, COO at Merchants explained why the human element remains critical for organisations to close the customer experience gap.
Create value through human interaction
Technology works best alongside real people to create value for customers. How a customer feels about an interaction has the greatest impact on loyalty. While 11% of respondents to the 2019 Dimension Data Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report believe over 50% of agent-led customer experience activity will be migrated to robotic automation and AI in the next two years, traditional customer interactions remain important. Human interaction provides real moments of truth in the customer experience journey and the right conversations at the right time create emotional connections which affect how people make purchasing decisions.
