3 ways retailers are adapting to higher customer expectations

Smiling woman looking at her phone while shopping — Smiling woman text messaging on smart phone. Happy female customer with curly hair is wearing casuals. She is shopping at supermarket.

From a massive ecommerce shift to curbside pickup and store floors converted into fulfillment centers, the retail experience has rapidly changed. In response to these changes, consumer expectations are higher than ever—not just for merchandise but for convenience, personalized customer service, and an excellent customer experience.

At NRF 2022: Retail’s Big Show, retailers and industry experts outlined the future of retail experiences and the challenges they face in meeting consumers’ raised expectations.

1. Evolve stores to complement digital journeys
Even before the pandemic, retailers knew that as digital and physical worlds collided, stores needed to adapt the in-store experience to stay relevant. As retail brands figure out how to adapt their physical spaces to fit in an omnichannel strategy, they should consider what purpose their stores serve, said Jeff Bradbury, senior marketing director at Hughes Network Systems.

“Every brand needs to decide how to [adapt their stores] in a way that’s unique to them,” Bradbury said. “Do you want a high-touch immersive experience or is it about efficiency and convenience, or something else?” The challenge, Bradbury added, is for retailers to not only create digital-enabled stores but to integrate them into buying journeys that work no matter which path a customer takes.

2. Fill labor gaps in non-traditional ways
An army of employees is needed to carry out the tasks that keep the retail experience humming. However, more than 90% of retailers are facing talent shortages. And at a time when there are more job openings than candidates, would-be employees are looking for more reasons to work in retail, noted Best Buy CEO Corie Barry at an on-stage interview.

“They ask, what is my career path? What are my benefits? What does my development look like,” Barry continued. This leads executives to ask, “How do I offer this suite of things to my employees that will help them stay sticky to me as a company?” While Barry did not provide a remedy, she indicated that employee experience and retention were a priority for retailers.

Retailers are also looking into upskilling and/or cross-training employees as another way to increase retention and fill roles. At a breakout session, Will Eadie, CRO of WorkJam explained how companies are doing exactly that.

“One of the things we’re seeing is this idea of employees hiding in our own companies,” Eadie said. “What if we could gigify inside our own stores and distribution centers to fill those gaps? Instead of searching for new employees, by providing more training and flexible scheduling, retailers are beginning to provide part-time employees with more hours and higher wages, for instance.”

3. Scale retail experiences with AI
In addition to finding more innovative ways to hire employees, the future of retail will be increasingly defined by artificial intelligence, according to retail and technology experts. In a keynote session, IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna estimated that even if retailers and other companies hired more aggressively, there still won’t be enough people to fill the roles. Instead, he predicted that companies “will use more automation and AI to take care of repetitive tasks.” Increasingly, the question that companies ask will be, “how do we improve the experience for customers using AI if we can’t find enough people?”

Indeed, the “customer experience that retailers provide needs to be dynamic to adapt in real-time and provide information, products, and services on-demand,” noted Raghu Ravinutala, co-founder and CEO of Yellow.ai. “This kind of real-time personalization can only happen at scale by leveraging AI.”

As an example how retailers are using AI to improve the customer experience, Ravinutala pointed to Sephora. “Sephora launched conversational engagement using AI and beauty assistants collaborating to provide product recommendations [via in-app messaging and platforms like Whatsapp] and now this has become a core channel for customer engagement.”

Future-proofing retail
While retail continues to face numerous headwinds in the form of supply chain challenges, inflation, and labor shortages, the industry has made enormous progress in advancing the customer experience. Customers have more options than ever to purchase and receive products from brands seamlessly through multiple channels. And some trends, such as consumer expectations of inclusive, sustainable brands, are still gaining steam. But as much as things change, some things remain the same. Notably, the brands that succeed are the ones that stay customer-focused, no matter what challenges arise.

Contact center workforce 101: IVR vs. chatbots vs. agents

Customer service interactions can quickly evolve, requiring different channels and tools. A quick live chat with a bot, for instance, can rapidly escalate to an emergency call with an agent, which we refer to as an associate, and vice versa. The same is true for a call that begins with an interactive voice response (IVR) system. Leading contact centers understand that each person and tool has its strengths and weaknesses, and create a better customer experience when combined appropriately.

To better understand this, let’s dive into the human and robotic makeup of a modern contact center.

What is an IVR?

An IVR is an automated phone system technology that allows incoming callers to access information via a selected prompt of prerecorded messages without having to speak to an associate.

This tool is mainly used with touch tone keypad selections or speech recognition to get a call routed to a specific department or specialist. An IVR can also collect information from the caller, saving the associate time during the conversation.

The best fit

During times of high call volumes, for example holiday rushes, an effective IVR system can help avoid hold times by helping customers find answers and perform simple tasks. And in cases where a customer needs or requests to speak to a person, the IVR can route the call quickly and seamlessly to an expert associate.

A well designed IVR can increase customer satisfaction and improve contact center operations and KPIs greatly by decreasing user effort with digital interfaces.

What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is an automated software that simulates a live chat conversation with a user in natural language through messaging applications, websites, mobile apps, or through the phone. It allows customers to quickly receive answers to simple or common questions. Chatbots are primarily text-based and scripted to answer only specific questions.

The best fit

Chatbots resolve simple tasks quickly and save associates time by eliminating manual tasks that can be easily solved by automation (and are low stress for customers). Users don’t always want to speak to a human and being directed to self-service right from the start can reduce unnecessary friction.

Deflecting low tier operations, 24/7, can improve average handle time and customer satisfaction ratings by giving associates more time to tackle complex questions while the easy issues are handled swiftly by automation.

What is a contact center associate?

Contact center associates are the people that make customer service human. Contact center associates or agents manage phone, email, live chat, and support tickets for a variety of industries. These interactions vary from simple transactions to complex support inquiries.

Contact center associates operate in various industries across the globe, whether it be onshore, offshore or nearshore. And the flexibility of at-home work has enabled new members of the workforce to enter the customer service space.

The best fit

A well-trained associate or agent is suited for both simple and complex interactions, but the human touch is always needed for the latter. By the time a customer has reached an associate they may have already bypassed an IVR or chatbot, particularly if the situation is severe, and will want an answer as soon as possible.

In these emotionally charged situations, associates rely on powerful management tools and real-time insights from voice and text analytics to identify trending issues and customer sentiment. All the while the tools mentioned above handle simple, time-consuming tasks, that would eat away at an associate’s ability to focus on understanding and resolving the issue.

Humanity and technology, the best of both worlds

Effective contact centers equip associates with the right technology and tools to handle difficult situations. The key here is to ensure that each tool is connected to a complementary channel creating a symbiotic relationship. Nothing is more frustrating for a customer, for example, than feeling trapped by an IVR or chatbot and unable to speak with a live customer care associate.

Building an empathy-driven customer service organization means knowing that intelligent automation tools can empower the human touch for low- and high tier interactions.

Learn more

Top customer service AI and automation trends for 2022: Discover the trends and innovations for customers and employees with intelligent automation.

5 ways to increase customer satisfaction using IVR: In this tips & takeaways guide, learn 5 ways contact centers can deploy meaningful IVR systems that go from zero to hero.

CX experts share chatbot mistakes (and remedies): Learn key takeaways for AI in this blog covering The CX Tipping Point event.

Outsourcing: Which shore is right for you: Explore this ebook to learn the benefits of recruiting talent across the globe.

4 work-from-home resiliency strategies for the contact center: These takeaways focus on the strategies needed to weather uncertainty and maintain a healthy work environment.

2021 hindsight: What the market got wrong about CX this year

It’s that time of year—to take stock and reflect on the last 12 months and look ahead trying to predict what 2022 will bring.

But if the past couple of years have taught anything, it’s that predictions can be tricky. A year ago, still in the throes of the pandemic, many turned hopeful eyes to 2021 expecting the world—and the customer experience landscape—to largely return to “normal.” With 2022 on the horizon, though, that hasn’t been the case.

Predictions that didn’t materialize
Here are few predictions for 2021 that, in hindsight, missed the mark:

2021 prediction: The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on businesses will end.
What really happened: Despite the vaccine rollout, the pandemic continues to affect people’s—and businesses’—daily lives as we head into 2022. Vaccine hesitancy and the formation of new variants like Delta have kept COVID at the forefront of many conversations and business decisions.

Now, compounding the uncertainty, many companies are grappling with a complex set of logistics around vaccine mandates. Public sector employees and contractors, health care workers, and private-sector workers at companies with more than 100 employees face mandates under which they must get vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing.

This brings an entirely new set of challenges to businesses: Helping employees schedule vaccine appointments, verify whether workers are vaccinated, and comply with testing requirements. It’s also forcing companies to rethink their employee experience models, leading with empathy when it comes to this emotionally charged topic.

2021 prediction: Employees will be eager to return to the workplace.
What really happened: With the devastating financial toll the pandemic took on so many families, including job losses, many expected workers to eagerly return to the workforce—and the office—once it became safe to do so.

Instead, there’s been a Great Resignation. Workers continue to quit jobs in record numbers, in search of opportunities that offer better pay and more flexibility. The pandemic spurred a lot of people to consider whether they were truly happy in their jobs; and for many the answer was a resounding “no.”

Additionally, the pandemic has made it clear that work-from-home options will be here to stay.

Employees enjoy the flexibility and productivity working from home offers, and employers can tap into a larger talent pool when they’re no longer constrained geographically. But this shift means companies now must redefine their employment engagement strategies and invest in tools that make it easy for remote teams to collaborate.

A big question looms for 2022 and beyond: How will employers create a feeling of unity and loyalty among workforces that are no longer coming together to work in the same physical spaces?

2021 prediction: The economy will bounce back post-pandemic, just as quickly as it declined.
What really happened: The V-shaped economic recovery that many forecasted has not come to fruition. Instead, labor shortages, supply chain problems, and rising wages are hindering growth and creating new challenges in many areas.

Businesses find themselves having to manage an increase in contact center volume – when an item is out of stock, for instance, due to supply chain delays – with a smaller workforce, which can lead to frustrating experiences for employees and customers alike. And when new workers are hired, businesses need to ensure they have an easy, agile, and quick onboarding process.

In the new normal, companies must try to prioritize EX and CX while navigating unforeseen market conditions.

Where there’s more work to do
Not all predictions made for 2021 were bad. Some simply have left more work to be done as 2022 begins. Here are a few predictions that weren’t wrong, but weren’t fully realized either:

2021 prediction: Customers will increasingly want digital interactions.
Room for improvement: Consumers’ embrace of digital channels is nothing new, but demand for digital options soared during the pandemic as more customers sought the ease and safety of online, mobile, and chat-based interactions over visiting brick-and-mortar businesses.

Mid-year, 22% of global purchase influencers named accelerating their shift to digital as their top priority, up from 18% pre-pandemic, according to the CallMiner report, “Conversational Intelligence to Shape Your Brand Experience.” But have companies been investing enough in digital, and in the right offerings?

In the same report, more than half of respondents (57%) said their top technology initiative over the next 12 months would be investing in digital experience technologies, which suggests many brands haven’t yet mastered delivering seamless digital CX.

2021 prediction: Artificial intelligence will play a bigger role in CX.
Room for improvement: Embracing automation with a human touch was poised to be a widespread trend in 2021, and some brands have made great strides, but many companies still haven’t harnessed the full potential of this powerful tool.

AI solutions make associates’ jobs easier, which results in better experiences for associates and customers alike. TTEC’s RealPlay bot, for instance, combines AI and machine learning technology to simulate real-world customer scenarios. Employees learn by completing the job and getting real-time feedback and coaching. Tools like RealPlay, which is completely digital, on-demand and asynchronous, will play a major role in the future of CX.

Innovate, adapt, and act in 2022
After the last couple of years, it can feel difficult to predict what 2022 will bring. But some things are clear: Consumer expectations keep growing, and they’re becoming increasingly digital – and the brands that truly stand out will be those that strike the right balance of technology and people to deliver seamless, omnichannel experiences across all points of the customer journey.

A focus on CX and EX helped Citizens Bank thrive amid pandemic

Businesses across all sectors were sent scrambling as the world largely shut down in the pandemic’s early days, but banks – where brick-and-mortar locations historically were the cornerstone of day-to-day business – faced some of the biggest changes and challenges.

As global economic uncertainty began to spread with COVID-19, customers flooded banks with questions about their finances. At the same time, a workforce that was unaccustomed to remote work had to quickly learn how to navigate this new environment and manage volume surges while working from home.

At Citizens Bank the changes spurred by the pandemic, while jarring at first, have led to long-term shifts that company leaders say will benefit customer experience, employee experience and the bottom line for years to come. The evolution is a work in progress, said Citizens Bank Senior Vice President of Business Solutions Jonathan Bicker.

Bicker recently appeared with Chris Condon, TTEC’s senior vice president of business development, at The Conference Board’s Ultimate CX Conference. They spoke about TTEC’s partnership with Citizens and how the right mix of people and technology helped one of the country’s oldest banks deliver amazing customer and employee experiences even through and unprecedented time.

The right technology is key

It’s one thing to know your workforce needs to quickly shift to a work-from-home model; it’s another to have the technology to do it.

When banks were forced to shutter their brick-and-mortar branch locations during the pandemic’s early days, Citizens had to ensure its employees could work very differently than they ever had before. And the change needed to happen; the company was inundated with phone calls and associates couldn’t keep up, Bicker recalled.

“What we needed was more of a multipronged approach,” he said, including additional channels customers could use to engage with the company.

With decades of experience helping financial services clients, TTEC was able to help the company stand up a program in less than a month that diverted many IVR inquiries to SMS, allowing associates to help more customers more quickly. Customers appreciated having the additional option of using SMS, Bicker said, which improved experiences.

With TTEC’s guidance the company also began harnessing the power of artificial intelligence. Based on early successes, Citizens aims to increase its use of AI-enabled chat bots and conversational bots to makes associates’ jobs easier and customer interactions more seamless.

“We are in the infancy of our AI journey,” Bicker said. “It’s still an evolving journey for us.”

With these systemic technological improvements, Bicker said Citizens is now better prepared to function in the new normal. The bank can meet customers where they are, via their preferred channel, resulting in better experiences – and ultimately, a healthier bottom line.

TTEC’s expertise and guidance when it came to identifying gaps and providing scalable solutions enabled the company to adapt quickly, Bicker said.

“Being with the right partner and having the right technology configuration made going into this very easy,” he said.

Intelligent automation can provide many benefits to companies, Condon said, since automating menial tasks free associates up to focus on more complex interactions. But embracing automation doesn’t mean a brand should automate every interaction. Rather, companies should focus on making the customer journey the best it can be, and automate where it makes sense along the way, he said.

Employee experience matters, too

Having the right technology is critical to adapting quickly in a new business landscape, but the employee experience is equally as important.

As soon as COVID-19 struck, Citizens started examining what employees needed to do their jobs well. A big part of that was technology; associates suddenly needed laptops and headsets to enable them to work from home.

But beyond technology, a broader shift in employee experience was jumpstarted. Given the current labor market, bank officials realize that associates want the option of working from home, at least part of the time. Enabling hybrid or work-from-home employment is key to attracting and retaining good talent these days, Bicker said.

“I don’t ever want to lose the rhythm and ritual of being able to have the workforce work from anywhere,” he said. “Today we have a workforce that is primarily work-from-home, but they are equipped to work from either home or office. It’s really been quite the transformation.”

As associates’ work environments and expectations continue to evolve, communication is paramount, he added. At Citizens, associates were used to synchronous chat channels pre-covid, and moving to asynchronous channels was a big change. To help ensure employees were successful and felt supported, supervisors met with associates twice a day to check in and help when needed.

Amid so much change, Citizens also prioritizes retaining the culture of Citizens as much as possible. Supervisors continually check in with their teams via virtual meetings and, after about six months of adjustments, workers soon settled into their new norm, Bicker said.

“Communication is key,” he said, adding supervisors often discuss with their team members “how they can live the brand, and how their contact with a customer can positively impact that customer.”

In today’s labor market, when many people are re-evaluating whether they’re truly happy in their jobs, removing friction from employees’ jobs whenever possible is crucial to finding and keeping top talent, Condon said. Banks, like many brands, face a big challenge: navigating a difficult labor market while, at the same time, customer expectations are growing faster than ever. Companies must evolve to thrive.

“The industry has changed forever,” Condon said.

Watch an on-demand video of Condon and Bicker’s conversation here.

2022 wage strategies: How contact centers can face the Great Resignation

In the face of the Great Resignation, industries across every sector are faced with a harsh reality: give your employees a healthy and productive work environment or they will leave you. And the contact center industry is not exempt.

With several outsourcing contact centers in 2021 reporting training class rates as low as 20% and above average stress levels, it’s no longer a question of how does the industry recruit quality employees, but how does it retain them?

Meeting employee needs and equipping them with the right tools with be critical in 2022. In order to foster and retain talent, here are 4 strategies that can used to create a healthier and more cost-effective contact center environment.

1. Put employee needs on top

The nature of work has changed, but human needs haven’t: technology alone isn’t going to retain your employees, a better and livable wage will.

Your associates are the front line of your business. They are your brand ambassadors who interact with your customers every day. They can make or break customer loyalty and influence revenues, costs, and overall corporate financial health.

If you treat employees as valuable assets with higher pay and a more supportive work environment, you will attract better quality associates, they will stay longer, and they will provide better service. In the long run they will cost you less than if you pay lower wages because they will stay longer and improve their skills over time.

The average wage for a U.S. contact center representative is $14.64 per hour, according to Indeed. In our experience, we have found that even slight increases above market averages will attract better candidates who will be more likely to stay, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. Associate tenure increases, which leads to a range of other performance and customer KPIs.

We see that investing up front in talent is the most efficient way to simultaneously improve your customer experience and your bottom line. Attrition is a profitability killer. If you can stem attrition, you can fund the pay increases easily.

2. Balance automation with humanity

In the years before the pandemic, analysts knew that the adoption of AI, machine learning, and automated interactions were rapidly on the rise, but little did we know how essential these innovations would be in the new-normal. In the summer of 2020, a Harris Poll indicated that 92 percent of business leaders agree that survival post-pandemic includes enabling digital channels and automation in the workplace.

We have reached the tipping point from automation as hype to business-as-usual. The need for rapid information on vaccinations, employment, and government mandates has skyrocketed the need for self-service and deflection to help manage volume surge.

Automation and customer self-service tools can ease the human burden for supporting repeatable, simple, transactional interactions. This will be incredibly important in the upcoming months as vaccine registration cites face overwhelming demands and overcrowding. Give your associates the tools they need for interactions that are complicated, highly valuable, and emotionally driven. The goal is to create “do no harm” automation policies and processes that free up human resources to focus on higher-value interactions. It can’t just be a cost savings decision.

3. Unlock insights with analytics

When margins are tight, the ability to gather insights about associates early on about their future potential is a critical asset. Double this by the fact that our now remote work environment has increased the talent pool to a global level.

From talent acquisition through the employee lifecycle, data-driven insights can fuel employee performance, satisfaction, and retention throughout the associate hiring, training, and development lifecycle. And having happy, knowledgeable, invested employees more easily translates into increased customer satisfaction. Both historical and predictive insight can enhance a company’s ability to create productive, engaged workers.

For example, in the recruitment phase, talent acquisition leaders can determine the most predictive pre-hire characteristics of future employees, based on common attributes of their most successful associates, such as education and high levels of empathy. In the training and development phases, employee or trainer performance metrics can be analyzed to find positive and negative outliers in performance during training and in live environments. The curriculum can be modified based on performance and on how effective the methods are in both training and the live environment.

And retention analysis can help companies focus on the rewards or recognition associates enjoy most (bonuses, days off, longer breaks, control over schedule); who is likely to attrite and when; and where there are training gaps that hinder upward employee mobility.

4. Eliminate waste from operations

Zeroing in on inefficiencies that slow down operations and cause friction in the customer experience can help companies identify areas that constrain to their long-term growth, scalability, and ultimately profitability. The good news for companies interested in improving their operations is that even small, incremental changes can make a big difference.

Call deflection strategies help eliminate “bad volume” by reducing redundant calls or pre-empting calls with proactive outreach before a customer needs to pick up the phone. Frequent caller activity analysis can identify common issues in products, services, or customer experiences that may be fixed to prevent future calls. Simple changes to associate scripts, website text, or app tools may reduce handle time and increase resolution rates. And operational assessments can look at the entirety of the customer interaction to see what can be streamlined.

Taking it a step further, customer journey orchestration programs design, implement, and manage all the steps a customer has with your company, in various channels. Deciding which of these touchpoints can be automated, which can be streamlined, and which can be eliminated will also reduce waste in effort and money.

In 2022 great EX is a priority

Prior to the pandemic, most contact centers operated in the same factory approach they did 30 years ago, even as businesses all around them evolve to be more employee-centric.

In the face of the Great Resignation, the efficiency gained from automation, process improvements, and talent acquisition/retention must be re-invested to retain talent. There will always be a need for humanity in the customer experience space, and it begins with fostering humanity in the workplace.

6 ways to renew (and stick to!) your CX vows

In 2020, brands discovered how empathy can drive profitability and win lifetime loyalty, even during trying times. Fast forward to 2022—successful brands who continue to grow, innovate, and advance in the digital space need to answer the question: Are we sticking to the human side of the experience? Are we keeping our CX vows to customers and employees?

Your brand is your promise to your customers, it’s a pledge to deliver exceptional customer experience. And maintaining this vow demands action and self-awareness.

Invest and act on great customer experience
Understanding the importance of building an organizational CX competency is a crucial first step, but without an executable strategy, organizations will continue to lag industry leaders. Renewing your CX vows begins with the basics. Here’s a refresher of 6 transformation roadmap steps to help deliver exceptional customer experiences and set your brand apart in the marketplace.

Step #1: Understand your current CX state
Your brand needs to maintain and develop a deep understanding of your customers—their basic needs and unique expectations. Data is at the core of any customer experience strategy. Start with research and journey mapping to create a visual representation of the path your customers take when they engage with your brand.

You can also use data collection to build a more nuanced understanding for the “why” behind your customer journey maps. Qualitative research methods—such as customer interviews, focus groups, and even ride-a-longs—can help collect insights directly from the customer. Meanwhile quantitative research methods—including surveys, website analytics and CRM data—can provide broader stroke insights that inform a deeper understanding of customer preferences and receive feedback on your current CX. Remember this step is about establishing a foundation on which you can build phased improvement. It will drive the action steps that come next.

4 questions to ask during this step:

What paths do customers take when they interact with your brand before, during, and after purchase?
What pain points do they encounter during their journey?
What are the moments that really matter in their journey?
What customer experience strategies and channels do we currently have in place? How are they performing?

Step #2: Define your CX north star
Let’s start by understanding what a North Star is. When it comes to creating an exceptional customer experience, your North Star is the focal point or the central CX concept that should be supported by every strategic decision you make. It should embody your brand values and provide a shining example of what exceptional customer experiences should look like in your organization.

Internally, the North Star should serve as the core goal and motivational vision you aim to deliver—from the contact center to your website and in-store or app experience. Externally, your North Star comes to life as your CX promise (vow) and poises your customers to recognize your brand.