What it takes for a business to be completely customer obsessed

Technology

Sponsored by CISCO

Zarina Pasalic, Head of Digital Customer Experience – EMEAR, Cisco

In today’s digital economy, customer experience (CX) is everything. Research from Salesforce shows that 57 per cent of customers switched to a competitor to get a better experience. And Bain & Co reports that “companies with superior CX grew revenue five times faster on average than their competitors with inferior CX.”

To adapt to these market trends, forward-thinking companies – whether business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) – are making the decision to become completely customer obsessed, taking customer experience and digital engagements to new heights. With customer retention as the ultimate goal, they are dedicating their businesses to giving customers what they want: less friction and digital frustration, more immediacy and personalisation, fewer hassles and more options for self-help to take control of their own buying journey.

This new buying journey no longer fits the mould of a traditional sales funnel – it’s not enough to simply fill the funnel and move onto the next customer. In order to be successful, companies must be present throughout the entire post-purchase lifecycle. In the new era of CX, the customer journey looks a lot more like an infinity loop because a company’s interaction with the customer should have no end.

Cisco’s approach to CX provides insight into the changing market. To fully support its customers in choosing, using and loving both Cisco and its solutions, the company has transformed its entire business beyond being aware of customers’ needs to anticipating them and taking the next-best action. It continues to listen to its customers and partners to gain an ongoing, 360-degree view of their needs and expectations, using interviews and surveys to find out how to serve them better.

And, with artificial intelligence and machine learning, the company is harnessing data to work in real time to proactively detect customer vulnerabilities, provide prescriptive solutions, identify roadblocks to successful adoption of its products and services, and eliminate barriers to software and subscription renewals. Working together with its reseller partners in the UK and around the world, Cisco is doing everything it its power to retain customers for life.

The bottom line is that businesses today must modernise and simplify the way they approach and interact with customers, enabling them to enjoy a fully connected experience from the moment they buy all the way to the time they renew. To do this, they must reach each customer using both digital and human-led touches – with the right content, at the right time – owning each moment through highly personalised customer journeys.

For a deeper look at why and how Cisco has become completely customer obsessed, see here.