The Biden/Harris administration is focusing attention on bad corporate customer experience practices like customer service “doom loops” and problems with customer service chatbots.
That might seem an unlikely space for presidential intervention, but the administration has already addressed CX shortcomings at federal agencies. The plan to improve corporate CX is called “Time is Money.”
Why we care. There’s an election coming up, there are wars, there’s the economy (stupid) and immigration. Yet customer experience and service has bubbled up into the Presidency’s consciousness. That means it’s important, right? The administration is taking action on junk fees because, however trivial, they’re an additional strain on people’s resources. They’re framing bad CX practices as another way to waste people’s money.
“Americans know these practices well: it’s being forced to wait on hold just to get the refund we’re owed; the hoops and hurdles to cancel a gym membership or subscription; the unnecessary complications of dealing with health insurance companies; the requirements to do in-person or by mail what could easily be done with a couple of clicks online; and confusing, lengthy, or manipulative forms that take unnecessary time and effort.
These hassles don’t just happen by accident. Companies often deliberately design their business processes to be time-consuming or otherwise burdensome for consumers, in order to deter them from getting a rebate or refund they are due, or canceling a subscription or membership they no longer want—all with the goal of maximizing profits.
Dig deeper: Intense election ad buying could upend brands’ holiday marketing plans
Getting ahead of the White House. Customer experience solutions vendor InMoment has issued some key to-do’s for companies based on a survey of 1,000 consumers. Here are the four headlines:
- Make live support accessible. Seventy percent of consumers have struggled to reach a live agent and almost 40% say this happens frequently. These experiences drive churn.
- Make automated systems smarter. Over 68% of customers are dissatisfied with automated customer service, trapped by machines that can’t resolve their issues (the chatbot backlash).
- Make omnichannel communications seamless. More than 92% of customers want to reach brands in their preferred channel. And 20% feel like they have to start all over again if they switch channels.
- Keep the promises you make. Another thing that efficiently drives churn is broken promises — and that includes poor follow-up.
The InMoment advice can be found here.
About the author
Kim Davis is currently editor at large at MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for almost three decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Shortly thereafter he joined Third Door Media as Editorial Director at MarTech.
Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.