The brand-customer relationship is evolving and the brand promise put forward must above all reflect the commitment to sincere and concrete actions, proposed in an intelligent way according to the different interaction channels.
Respecting this promise can have a significant impact on the quality expected and the satisfaction felt by the customer.
However, as customers are increasingly informed, demanding, receptive and even defiant, we can all testify that this brand promise is not always fulfilled or can be somewhat altered.
This is true regardless of the contact channels used, but even more so when we interact with a customer service department.
Aligning the relational posture of advisors with the company’s brand promise and customer orientation is therefore becoming a major challenge for all companies seeking to differentiate themselves through the customer experience.
What benefits can we expect?
- Enable the customer to realize the company’s brand promise at every interaction with the company, especially with customer service.
- Avoid brand promise breaks in an increasingly multi-channel and digital customer journey
- Harmonize the relational posture between all customer service advisors, whether they are internalized or outsourced.
- Give meaning to the mission of the consultants by enabling them to translate the brand promise and the company’s customer orientation into their daily interactions.
How do I go about it?
Based on its experience in accompanying its clients towards relational excellence, Activeo has developed a structured and tool-based approach, allowing to align the relational posture of the consultants in a reduced time.
Define “customer orientation” aligned with the company’s brand promise or with its challenges in terms of differentiation through customer experience.
They must be:
- Few in number and understood by all
- Complementary to each other
- Enthusiastic and inspiring to meet today’s and tomorrow’s customer expectations
Define the targeted customer experiences for each customer orientation.
The targeted customer experiences, defined for each of the selected customer orientations, allow us to translate what the company wants its customers to experience and feel during each of their interactions with the brand, regardless of the channels used. They are expressed from the customer’s point of view, using the customer’s words.
They serve as a “reference” for all the actors involved in customer interactions.
Define the multi-channel relational posture aligned with the targeted customer feelings.
The objective is to translate each of the targeted customer experiences into the relational posture of the consultants. Like a mirror effect, they are expressed from the employee’s point of view, using the employee’s words.
The targeted relational posture must enable the employee to answer the question:
“What do I need to do as a counselor to achieve the “targeted customer feelings”?
Define the advisor’s toolbox to enable them to embody the relational posture.
The objective is to define the “operational tools” that will allow counselors to concretize the “targeted relational posture” during an interaction on a given channel, via :
- A set of best practices,
- Elements of language,
- Technical evidence” visible to the client.7
All these elements will constitute the advisor’s relational charter.
Adapt the quality process to take into account this new relational posture.
On the one hand, the evaluation grids of the advisors must evolve to take into account the new relational posture. On the other hand, we need to rethink the evaluation, coaching and skills development system for counselors.
Redefining a relational posture is therefore not a subject that concerns only the advisors, but the entire managerial chain as well as the support functions.
Define the deployment plan for the operational teams.
The deployment plan aims to answer the following questions:
- How to obtain the support of all the actors concerned?
- How can the new relational posture and its tools be deployed operationally without hindering production requirements?
- How can the tools of the relational posture be gradually deployed on the different contact channels?
How to give yourself the best chance of success?
As with any project, certain success factors must be taken into account from the start of the initiative:
- Relying on the voice of the customer to ensure that the customer orientations and the targeted customer experiences meet the expectations and needs of the company’s customers.
- Conduct a collaborative and participative approach by involving operational staff who will be ambassadors of the approach and of the new relational posture.
- Avoid the big bang effect during deployment. Start with a pilot, for example on a given contact channel, and then progressively deploy the new relational posture on all channels.
- Integrate flow processing partners into the process to ensure true continuity of the brand promise…
For 25 years, the Activeo group has been accompanying companies in France and abroad towards relational excellence.
The complementarity of our three businesses (consulting, integration and application development) allows us to respond to 4 major challenges facing companies
- Simplify and enrich the multi-channel customer experience
- Improve the operational performance of companies
- Capitalize on the voice of the customer
- Develop new means of collaboration within companies
Activeo Group is a member of the international LimeBridge alliance.