Designing a World-Class Digital Customer Experience Program

Transcription

1 Designing a World-Class Digital Customer Experience Program

2 Table of Contents Track and diagnose potential high-level problems within site experience Dive deep into the key journeys to gain actionable insights Target the right visitors at the right moment In-journey research best practices Who should I be sampling? Getting the sample size you need Close the loop Prioritize Who should be closing the loop? Summary 2

3 Customer journey mapping is a major component of any customer experience program. Of course, a key part of mapping the customer experience includes identifying key moments of truth or moments of consumer brand interaction that shape brand perception and loyalty. In the digital age, many key moments of truth for your customers are happening online. This means that more and more of your consumers, brand perceptions and attitudes will be based on purely digital interactions (in-app, website, wearable tech, etc.). This has made understanding your customers digital interactions an essential part of any customer experience program. It has been said that VOC programs without a web presence engage only 2% to 10% of those who interact with their website (marketing sherpa). As we move into the future, this trend will continue. We know that mobile is an inherent part of today s digital experience. Global mobile and tablet internet usage just exceeded desktop use for the first time (GS StatCounter, 2016) and we also see that 82% of consumers turn to mobile to help make a product decision (Google/Ipsos, 2015). So it s really no longer a question these digital moments, across platforms (mobile, tablet, or desktop) are shaping essential KPIs that will ultimately inform the path to purchase. A mobile-first mindset matters today more than ever before. Viewing onsite customer experience through the lens of your analytics is extremely valuable. However, only looking at what customers do on the site will inevitably leave gaps in your knowledge. In order to truly optimize the customer experience onsite, you will need to talk directly to the customer so as to fill in the gaps left by analytics alone. 3

4 This approach will paint a picture of the genuine digital experience, enabling the following lines of inquiry: Why is the person behaving this way? What was the initial purpose of their visit to the site, and were they successful? Did this onsite experience create a loyal customer? Is this customer likely to come back to this site? What other touchpoints are taking place outside of the website experience? Many organizations look at the digital experience as a singular event, when really the digital experience itself consists of many different journeys that determine if the overall customer experience was positive. For example, was it a consumer coming to buy something that caused the positive interaction? Or was it a consumer coming to get support? Did the brand interaction inform the purchase decision at that moment, or was the visitor simply conducting their own competitive comparison or price shopping exercise? Only by looking through the lens of each digital touchpoint, can we better understand how to improve the overall customer experience in the digital medium. The fact is, improving the digital experience will go a long way in increasing a consumer s willingness to recommend your brand. In a recent study conducted by Qualtrics, over 65% of customers said that their experience on the website would be at least a very important factor in their willingness to recommend a brand. So how can you diagnose, gain actionable insight, and fix digital experiences on your website? 4

5 1. Track and diagnose potential high-level problems within the site experience 5

6 Ultimately, in this stage of a digital experience program, you are trying to gain insight into what journeys are common on your site. Of those common journeys, which ones are effective, and which are problematic? What is resonating with your relevant audience, and what is off the mark? This process starts by understanding, from the customer perspective, what are the key digital journeys they engage in during a site visit. While the specific goals of a site visit can change based on industry, we have found that common goals or journeys on a website can include: Buy Manage Account Get Help Learn (Research or Browse) Enjoy Connect Compare Provide Feedback In order to properly diagnose the effectiveness of specific journeys, you will want to capture some key, high-level metrics around the overall site experience. Some of these metrics include: 6

7 GOAL ATTAINMENT OF THE SITE VISITOR What is the primary purpose of their visit to your site, and were they successful? The intended purpose of your website may not always be the primary reason site visitors are visiting your site. (It s also possible that the visitor s intent will change during the interaction, so dynamic, real-time data capture is essential.) LIKELIHOOD OF THE VISITOR TO RECOMMEND YOUR SITE (NPS) Net Promoter Score (NPS) is used in virtually every industry by organizations of all sizes around the world. In its most simple form, NPS can be described with one simple question: How likely is it that you would recommend [Organization X / Product Y / Service Z] to a friend or colleague? Here are a few things that NPS allows you to do: Segment customers by loyalty Optimize around a single customer metric Uncover customer loyalty drivers Identify unsatisfied and at-risk customers Benchmark against industry and competitor scores Compare 7

8 LIKELIHOOD OF THE VISITOR TO RETURN TO YOUR SITE When looking at these high-level metrics, it will be important to not only view the magnitude or static score, but to establish meaningful baseline metrics in order to view and assess trends over time. In addition to the more holistic tracking metrics, there are some other key diagnostic instruments you can use to identify important focus areas around site experience. These instruments include: Key drivers that are impacting overall site experience (viewed through the lens of your key metrics) Primary pain points for site visitors The recommended methodology for engaging with a site visitor is a combination of an overall site experience study on exiting of the website and persistent feedback on all pages. 8

9 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE OVERALL SITE EXPERIENCE PERSISTENT FEEDBACK Track & Diagnose PROGRAM SCOPE Persistent opt-in feedback is particularly helpful for identifying key pain points on the site, but most of your research-based questions around key metrics should be saved for the overall site experience study. 9

10 2. Dive deep into the key journeys to gain actionable insights 10

11 While the Track & Diagnose stage is extremely helpful in diagnosing high-level problems and opportunities, the actionable data comes from in-journey research. In-journey research is where you gain actionable insight within a problematic journey. This is where you should ask targeted questions to a visitor that is engaged with a specific journey so you can more effectively see the journey through the eyes of the consumer and understand how to fix the problem. Diagnosing high-level problems alone does not go far enough. 11

12 The purpose of this stage is to get granular journey-specific insight so you can take action. Now that you have diagnosed the problems, you need the right data on how to fix the problems from the customer s perspective. The purpose of this data is to diagnose high-level journeys and issues. CART / BUY SUPPORT / GET HELP MANAGE ACCOUNT LEARN ENJOY / EXPERIENTIAL CONNECT WITH OTHERS / COMPANY PROVIDE CONTENT / FEEDBACK CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE OVERALL SITE EXPERIENCE PERSISTENT FEEDBACK TRACK & DIAGNOSE Track & Diagnose Journey Deep Dive PROGRAM SCOPE So how can we do this effectively? How do you know where to target users in a specific journey or funnel? 12

13 Target the right visitors at the right moment Gaining customer insight in the moment of journey interaction is valuable, but gaining customer perspective in moments of pain within that journey can be priceless. Obtaining access to these key moments and addressing the issues in a timely and relevant way will give you the ability to turn detractors into promoters. Some of the steps below can help you identify potential key areas of customer interaction within an onsite journey. A. WALK THE COMMON JOURNEYS YOURSELF (WITH A FOCUS ON THE PROBLEM JOURNEYS) Follow the flow to execute the objectives associated with that journey and use your analytics to verify that this is the flow users take. Document pain points you experience in this process. Be sure that you are acknowledging differences between various types of customers, or prospective customers. Different customer profiles will elicit different reactions to your messaging, content, and the experience overall. Ideally, you will be able to build accurate personas/profiles of visitors so as to target your prospects and effectively drive conversion. 13

14 If you don t know the profile of those who are on your site, Qualtrics technology can facilitate this process in a seamless way so as to automate respondent management across your organization and ensure that your relationship with respondents improves with time. In addition, and depending upon your objectives, it may be important to run an onsite customer profiling or segmentation study to help facilitate this process. B. VALIDATE PAIN POINTS ALONG THE JOURNEY BY CROSS-CHECKING YOUR ANALYTICS Is there a stage in that journey with a high idle rate or exit rate? Analytics can be a great source for identifying potential areas that are causing customer issues. C. LOOK AT YOUR PERSISTENT FEEDBACK Looking at the data from persistent feedback can be an indicator of where common pain areas exist. However, even the volume of persistent feedback coming from specific pages can be an indicator that you have a problem. 14

15 By determining characteristics of the visitor, you will be able to identify who is visiting your site and from there, determine what insights you can extract from basic demographic information. This will ultimately enable the creation of personalized content and survey questioning that will work to simultaneously enhance the customer experience and the respondent experience. At this point in your digital experience program, you should now understand: 1. Why visitors are coming to your site. 2. What journeys are allowing visitors to be successful, driving repeat visitors, and promoting loyalty. 3. Where potential pain points exist within problematic journeys. You are now equipped to start gathering in-journey data that will provide actionable insight into how to fix the problems from the customer is perspective. To effectively gather in-journey data, you need to be using technology that will allow you to target specific users engaged in that journey (and even exhibiting specific behavior). 15

16 Now that you know where to target users in the journeys, what type of research do you conduct in-journey? Fortunately, the methodology for in-journey research is a little more open and flexible. EXAMPLES OF IN-JOURNEY RESEARCH INCLUDE: Usability testing Visitor profiling Product / pricing research (are you finding what you re looking for?) Targeted help interactions A / B testing Page / product specific feedback Abandonment studies Post-transaction research Content effectiveness studies Omnichannel assessments If you are not running these assessments today or are concerned with what type of research you should be conducting, the CX implementation experts at Qualtrics can help. When engaging in-journey it is going to be important that you follow some basic rules of engagement, especially when it comes to balancing a positive UX with quality insights (or you run the risk of your CX engagement itself damaging customer loyalty). 16

17 In-journey research best practices BEST PRACTICE #1 Balancing active with passive approaches for engagement. Active approaches are an actual intercept soliciting feedback from site visitors based on sample rates, behavior, or customer profile information. Passive approaches are ever-present on the site, and allow the user to opt-in to the feedback experience. The matrix below will help inform you of the pros and cons of each approach. 17

18 Active Approach Passive Approach PROS Typically a representative sample on the website (higher data quality). Better venue for research questions (NPS, CSAT, Brand tracking, etc.). Higher engagement rates. This approach is better for UX. Thus, it can be displayed on every single page. This is a helpful method to diagnose specific pain points on the website. CONS Depending on the type of active approach, it can be more disruptive to the user experience. The data collected usually contains angels and demons. Due to the fact it is opt-in feedback, and not representative, it primarily consists of negative feedback (this assumption can change based on brand affinity), with highly positive feedback sprinkled in. Due to the amount of negative feedback, it is tough to ask real research questions. Lower engagement rates. BEST PRACTICES Escalate from discreet to indiscreet based on click and response rates. Be sure to prevent repeated display (start at six months). A passive mechanism should be displayed on every single page so pain among all of the pages can be assessed. 18

19 KEY TAKEAWAY Certain journeys and even certain industries require more finesse when engaging site visitors. The biggest takeaway here is that active approaches are preferable to get a representative audience within the journey. However, if not done correctly, they can inhibit goal completion. Passive approaches are easier on UX and great for identifying pain points on the site, but usually are not representative in nature. BEST PRACTICE #2 For active approaches, escalate from discreet to indiscreet. If you can be discreet, and still get the amount of data you need, then you are optimizing for UX. However, if you find that you are not getting enough solid input, then turn up the dial on your engagement. This rule particularly applies to: A. Creative types. When using an active approach, it makes sense to follow this order ( infobar > slider > popover ). B. The point in the funnel where the intercept occurs (again, focus on the most painful areas first). C. The sample size of journey visitors you are assessing. D. Prevent repeated display rules. Based on the volume of visitors to your site, you could start with at least a six month reprieve after intercepting a visitor. If you aren t getting enough data, reducing the reprieve timeframe is one lever you can pull to increase your response rates. 19

20 BEST PRACTICE #3 Prevent repeated display. Soliciting feedback every single time they come to your site (for active approaches) is bad practice and can damage user experience. As with your creative type, a discreet to indiscreet is best practice. When intercepting, start with at least a six-month prevent repeated display rule. However, based on participation rates, you can eventually ease to a 30-day prevention rule. By easing based on participation, you will most likely find the perfect mix of UX and insight without being overly disruptive. BEST PRACTICE #4 Be precise in what you ask (3-5 questions in journey). While it may seem like a good idea to ask everything you have on your mind while you have an engaged site visitor that is willing to talk to you, it is bad practice. 20

21 BEST PRACTICE #5 Talk to the right visitors at the right time. Be sure that you are asking questions to a relevant audience within a relevant journey. COMMON IN-JOURNEY EVENT TRIGGERS COULD INCLUDE (BY JOURNEY) Buy - abandonment, purchase confirmation Learn - scroll, login, type of content being consumed, abandonment Manage Account - login, logout, user-profile, url visited Get Help - repeat visits, geo-location, visitor profile Enjoy - site referrer, time on site Provide Content - page referrer, current URL Connect with Others - number of pages visited, IP address, cookie parameters When it comes to knowing where to intercept customers in a specific journey, you should consider the following: A. Where in the funnel are your analytics telling you there is potential pain? Is there an area with a high exit rate or bounce-rate? These areas should qualify for serious consideration when determining where to intercept customers. B. Are there specific pages in a funnel with a high amount of persistent feedback? Typically high volumes of persistent feedback indicate potential pain areas that require additional customer interaction for context of what is happening in this stage of the funnel. 21

22 Be aware that the type of intercept interaction may change depending on if you are engaging with the customer in the top of funnel or bottom of funnel. BEST PRACTICE #6 Be sure that every interaction reflects your brand. Chances are, you have spent millions of dollars (or more) on developing a world-class brand. Why give web visitors a different brand experience when they are giving feedback on your site? Does your feedback UX reflect your brand or your vendor s brand? BEST PRACTICE #7 Consider your audience when asking these questions use language that is digestible and engaging. Make your questions relevant to the visitor with personalized lines of inquiry. 22

23 Who should I be sampling? For most active in-journey and overall site experience research, getting a representative sample is important. By understanding how many unique visitors visit your site, or are in a specific journey, you will be able to figure out what a representative sample looks like. Use the Qualtrics sample rate calculator below to figure out your ideal sample size: Now that you know your sample size, how can you determine how many individuals you need to survey to obtain that sample? Having some key data points can help you run a basic calculation to see what percent of visitors you should be sampling. Active intercept click rates: 1% - 3% (this can vary widely) Passive intercept click rates: 0% -.5% (this can also vary widely) Completion rates: Average estimate is around 20%-30% (probably lower for an extry / exit survey) 23

24 As an example, let s say that you have around 10,000,000 unique visitors to your site every month, and you need around 400 completes per month on your overall site experience study (active approach) to have a representative sample within your accepted confidence interval. How many people would you need to sample? Taking a more conservative approach: 10,000,000 unique visitors x 1.5% sample rate = 150,000 visitors invited to participate 150,000 invitations x 1% acceptance rate = 1,500 invitations accepted 1,500 invitations accepted x 30% completion rate = 450 responses To figure out what the sample rate should be, follow this formula: required responses / ((unique visitors x click rate) x completion rate) 24

25 Getting the sample size you need Sometimes you may not get the sample size you were hoping for. This problem can occur both by not getting enough responses, and sometimes by getting far more than you need (which is not always a bad thing). Fortunately, if you are using the right technology, there are many different levers you can pull to impact participation rates. Below are key levers you can use to improve participation rates: 1. If possible, use embedded survey targets (survey inside of the creative) instead of clickable links. This will reduce the amount of steps required to provide feedback. 2. Is your targeting criteria too restrictive? You can still target a very specific audience, however your sample rate will have to increase. 3. Sample rate is a key lever that can dramatically impact total responses when increased or decreased. 25

26 5. The messaging used on your invitation makes a significant difference. One impactful idea is to phrase your feedback solicitation in terms of questions asked, not time required. For example, turn Do you have five minutes to provide us with feedback? into Please answer these five questions to help us improve your site experience. 6. Length of survey will dramatically impact completion rates. In a transactional environment (like on the website), never ask more than 8-10 questions around overall site experience and never more than 3-5 for journeyspecific research. These are especially true for the mobile journey all best practices are magnified with a mobilefirst mindset. Keep that in mind and your research will benefit greatly. *Note, most in-journey research is triggered based on behavior with an associated sample rate as a throttle, whereas most overall site experience research solely uses a sample rate. 26

27 3. Close the loop 27

28 To close the loop is not only to let customers know that you have heard their feedback but also to bring the customer s voice right inside the organization. Employees get a direct line to the people they are serving. They see and hear how they are creating or destroying loyalty and what they can do to improve matters. 28

29 TICKET MANAGEMENT TARGETED MESSAGES / PROMOTIONS CLICKSTREAM INTEGRATION REAL-TIME REPORTING TARGETED HELP INTERACTIONS ALERTS Diagnostic data from the on-going evaluation program inform what journeys need a deep dive. CART / BUY SUPPORT / GET HELP MANAGE ACCOUNT LEARN ENJOY / EXPERIENTIAL CONNECT WITH OTHERS / COMPANY JOURNEY DEEP DIVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PROVIDE CONTENT / FEEDBACK OVERALL SITE EXPERIENCE PERSISTENT FEEDBACK TRACK & DIAGNOSE TRACK & DIAGNOSE Track & Diagnose Journey Deep Dive Closed-Loop Management PROGRAM SCOPE 29

30 The single most important element of an effective CX program is to close the loop and fix the problem your customer is facing. Best in class close-loop programs provide a range of technology resources including: Real-time dashboards Ticket management solution Alerts and triggers (right person notified at the right time) In addition to the above technologies, best-in-class programs also include a robust methodology around how they go about closing the loop. In a digital setting, closing the loop happens both on a macro and micro level. On a macro scale, closing the loop means utilizing the customer feedback to actually fix the problematic journeys. It means strategic change on the company or business unit level. This might include identifying systemic issues (consistent negative feedback across a large number of accounts) that require broader initiative planning to properly address. While on a micro level, closing the loop means personally reaching out to rectify problems with individual customers. In most B2B settings, closing the loop with each customer is within the realm of possibility. However, in many B2C industries (retail, travel, media, etc.) closing the loop on poor digital experiences can seem daunting. Chances are that your persistent feedback link alone you may generate thousands of negative experiences that you could follow-up with. 30

31 So how can you prioritize? Who is best fit within the organization to close the loop on these priority tickets? A typical map to look at when devising a close loop strategy could look similar to the following: Close-Loop Decision Process MACRO Action: Fix journey specific issues MICRO Action: Fix problems on an individual basis Decision Points Prioritize high-value vs. low-value customers Determine who will be closing the loop (by ticket type) Establish workflow rules to alert the key groups when a high-value issue arises HIGH-VALUE CUSTOMERS Action: Create alerts and tickets to resolve isues 1:1 LOW-VALUE CUSTOMERS Action: Utilize technology to close the loop with non-human interaction 31

32 Prioritize It is not an easy process to know who to close the loop with when there are thousands (or even millions) of data points. It will take a lot of internal discussion and planning on how to prioritize the right customers for your close-loop process. You will then need a process of operationalizing this plan into effective ticket management. Below are example variables you should consider when categorizing high-value digital customers: Average cart value Repeat visitor Spend per year Subscription status Visitor profile (are they your target market?) By tying these data points and other analytics directly to the feedback, you will be better equipped to recognize a high-value target. 32

33 Who should be closing the loop? The answer here is: it depends. However, a general rule is the person who closes the loop should have some power to fix the problem. Not all problems are fixable. However, if you decide to route the close-loop follow-up process through your customer contact team, they should have enough power to delight the customer, not just be their punching bag. It is also going to be important that individuals directly involved with creating the experience should play an important role in closing the loop. Yes, this means digital teams (including key leadership), CX teams, and others that touch the digital customer journey should be on the phone with some of their priority customers. This way the pain and frustration can be communicated directly from the customer to those that have the power to fix the problem. It will also communicate to the customer that the company is invested in their experience and values their patronage. 33

34 Closing the loop with high-priority customers is best done with a personalized interaction. However, it will be important to also look at technology options to close the loop without human interaction for those customers that may not be considered top-tier. Examples of this could include targeted messages / promotions as a part of your feedback instrument. For example, if a customer is frustrated, technology should be able to provide some type of an offer to improve the experience and keep them in the funnel. Or, if it looks like a customer is frustrated from a behavioral standpoint, intercepting them with a targeted get help interaction could be just the thing to fix the problem experience. 34

35 To summarize, here are the best practices for close loop management: 1. Ensure those who are responsible for closing the loop are empowered to delight the customer. 2. Establish rules to prioritize high-value vs. low-value visitors and triage tickets appropriately. 3. Use technology to improve experiences for low-value customers. 4. Macro fixes will have the biggest blast radius. Focus here first, then follow through on the micro-level. 5. Use the data to drive change, not just monitor metrics. 6. Get senior leaders involved. 35

36 Summary The future of consumer brand interactions happening within digital environments is only going to increase. Think of the brands you personally interact with on a day to day basis. How often is that interaction in a digital medium? How many interactions do you want to be in a digital medium? As these digital interactions increase, it is going to be increasingly important that you listen to the customer s voice where they engage with your brand you must hear the voice of your consumer in a real and scalable way. Qualtrics is equipped with the right program and technology to do exactly this. Feel free to contact us at sales@qualtrics.com for more information on how to get started. Let Qualtrics help inform and improve your digital experience strategy. 36