There are lots of departments that keep an organization running smoothly, but two that must definitely be in sync are the customer experience (CX) and product teams. Your CX team has the most insight into your customers and, therefore, understands the challenges they face which the product could solve. Probably the most successful information mill the ones whose product teams leverage the CX team's customer insights and drive brand loyalty.
Steve Jobs is quoted as saying, “You've reached start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology.”
Here are a few tips to make sure that your CX and product teams can function together efficiently.
Align on the common goal
Despite being two different departments and playing different roles in the company, the CX and product teams must align on a common goal: to resolve customer problems and make an engaging customer experience by working together.
Having a shared goal results in more effective teamwork and guides fluidity across teams.
Have one another on speed dial
The CX and product teams should be in constant communication, filling out one another daily about how exactly the client is experiencing the product.
It's advisable for that two departments for connecting regularly so that the CX team can share the insights they've gathered from customers, what drives customers to contact the company and just what the general customer sentiment happens when they contact the company.
Likewise, the merchandise team must share information regarding product updates which are within the pipeline. This knowledge empowers CX teams to respond to answer customer questions, troubleshoot and retain customer trust.
Focus on the feedback loop
The feedback loop is really a process by which customers' experiences with the product are analyzed and distributed to the merchandise team to create a product that better meets needs.
The CX team must first develop a scalable system to granularly track and aggregate data about what drives people to contact the organization.
Although communicating with the client opens a door of chance to enhance their thought of the company, most of the time, when a customer contacts you, it is because the company or product has failed omehow. This failure point is where the feedback loop starts.
It will be up to CX team members not only to find out the underpinning explanations why customers contacted the company but to also provide such delightful experiences that customers feel more connected to the company than they did before. A great way to appraise the latter would be to request client satisfaction ratings of this experience, taking particular note from the response rate to that particular survey itself. The customers who are most wowed by their customer experience (whether positively or negatively) are the ones who'll take time to respond to your survey.
The final area of the feedback loop is for the CX team to regularly share which areas of the merchandise could be updated, to both reduce customer servicing costs and help inform and prioritize the merchandise development road map.
Encourage a humanistic method of business
Make sure your customer advocates embody empathy. They are the ones who're communicating with the customers and answering their demands. Therefore, they must possess the communication skills to help make the support interaction as pleasant as possible.
Entrepreneur Tony Allessandra puts this astutely, “Being on par when it comes to price and quality only gets you in to the game. Service wins the sport.” Customer advocates are the face of the company and the first stop for your customers when something goes awry. It's vital they understand how valuable their role is and that the organization empowers these to genuinely meet customer needs.
Your customers' expectations of their support experiences are different and could vary. Therefore, it's critical to supply customers with various options. This can involve letting them interact with you thru different channels, such as chat, email or phone.
As for the product team, they must continually search for ways to enhance the product experience and recognize the expertise the CX team has. This can ensure that they're continuously learning and expanding both their product and customer expertise.
There are many benefits when your CX and product teams are aligned on the type of customer experience the company aims to provide. Although the two teams have different day-to-day roles, both of them play a huge role in helping each other create a customer experience that inspires brand loyalty.
