What to Look Out For in Austin: Future of the Contact Center, Journey Mapping, and 360-Degree Customer Views

Given the pace of change in tech and business, CX leaders have a lot on their plates. Every year, we release Special Reports at least twice a month consisting of in-depth research on the most pressing CX priorities for today’s organizations. 

Featuring insights from industry experts, our reports cover the state of the industry, critical business problems that need solving and actionable next steps for instituting change in your organization. 

Ahead of CCW Austin, kicking off Monday, we reviewed our top-performing Special Reports this year and their most salient takeaways.

1. 2019 Predictions for the Contact Center

As more and more companies make moves to become customer-centric, we’ve seen a rise in design thinking-led culture, with user experience design at the forefront. Even businesses like 7-Eleven and ADP are taking it on, as we saw at Experience Design Week this year.

UX design is absolutely necessary for customer centricity because you can’t be customer-oriented if you don’t consistently gather qualitative information about your customers and design new features and processes to reduce customer effort. To iterate change effectively, a company needs to move in an agile fashion. 

Secondly, businesses are intent on optimizing self-service and customer journey orchestration to reduce the need for customers to contact care.

“Previous efforts [around journey mapping] have been about reducing costs in the customer support world, but by focusing on the customer journey and reducing the need for a contact we will see an increase in CX as well as a reduction in cost,” said Mark Killick, VP of care at Grubhub and a CCW advisory board member.

2. Customer Experience Journey Mapping 

Journey maps are more than just a handy visualization tool for rooting out pain points and gaps in the customer experience; they shine a light on why you aren’t meeting your business goals.

They visually represent every touchpoint customers have with your business throughout the sales cycle, from discovery to research and purchase, delivery to after-sales care.

It can be hard to understand the customer experience from the inside looking out, which is why journey maps are so important. They can help you answer bottom-line related, big-picture questions like:

• Why is my churn rate so high?
• What targeted and emails and calls-to-action should I send and when? 
• What is the customer trying to achieve in their own life using my product? 
• What is the best way to handle customer complaints?

3. 360-Degree Customer View 

Brands are collecting more information on their customers than ever before, ostensibly in exchange for personalized experiences, but they rarely deliver on that promise.

During their interactions with brands, less than 21 percent of customers believe agents truly know about them or their issues, and fewer than 26 percent believe agents have enough context to solve their problem at the beginning of the interaction. 

“Customers sign up for loyalty programs, share their input via social channels, reply to surveys, engage with your brand and in return expect a certain level of awareness of who they are,” said Ricardo Layun, VP of customer service operations at Radial. 

Likewise, brands call the lack of a 360-degree customer view as the most persistent inhibitor to a great digital experience.

Customer journey mapping is multi-layered, and it’s important to differentiate between the interaction journey (customer intent for the purchase or service interaction), customer relationship profile (the lifecycle of interactions between the brand the customer) and the customer lifestyle profile (broader demographics that help brands understand how they fit into each customer’s existing value hierarchy).

While you’re at CCW Austin…

You’ll have the chance to hear about these hot topics from industry experts who have grappled with these same challenges. Make sure to check out 'Key Findings on Customer Contact Trends in 2019' with CCW Digital principal analyst Brian Cantor on Day 1.

If journey mapping is your top priority, look out for our Day 2 session with Larry Rodgers, senior director of retail concepts at Nike, in 'Customer Intent: CX Design for Individuals, Not Your Average Customer' with Larry Rodgers.