Internal vs customer conflict in digital

We are all racing towards digital maturity but the path is not simple. The easiest bit is discussing technology. And those debates and contemplations can quickly lead down a rabbit hole of ideal scenarios, full of exciting AI tools that will help us fix everything that's sort of not working today. But AI will fix nothing if it's not fed the right data. So how are you feeding that data?

If you're like most people, data is something you do transactionally, not continuously.

So you're stuck in two realities.

The first is the realization that a transformation of your business is going to be long and hard and paved with many obstacles.

The other view is that things are much more simpler. The experience you will provide to the customer will deliver consistency and generate trust. You will stop asking for information you already know. And you will make everything accessible and solvable through up tap on the screen.

One of these realities one it's mostly reflecting on how we are set up internally, the other on how we engage with the customer.

It's also clear that they are different sides of the same coin.

The problem is in that conventional wisdom suggests how we should somehow try mint that coin at once in one big giant leap.

In reality, attempting to do so often gets us stuck.

For example, just a simple thing like how do we file a claim>

How do we know and check the identity of our customer?

Is one information enough one piece of information one piece of data?

Or do they have to give us an exact account number exact policy number.

Now what do we do with that information?

What do we do with the information that we capture during closing a policy?

How do we validate that information?

How do we use the things we know about the customer when we are in a situation of resolving something through the call center.

Even in such a simple everyday procedure, we can feel how difficult the act of balancing the relevant and advanced options is. Because they translate into relevant and advanced settings of your new digital system.

Applying the most rational and straightforward technology for resolving issues, or requests is the right thing to do.

Getting stuck in these little chunks and islands of data is just a way to annoy customers, raise expenses and prolong the transition to digital.

It's important to understand that different channels have different properties. And we can leverage those in effective ways.

For example, how many people do actually use a certain bit of technology that we have deployed in the company?

Is that technology being used well or are we duplicating systems, between branches or between different parts of the organizations?

How do we feed the data in and out between channels and the core and how do we further develop the channels that customers actually prefer and reward in a higher Net Promoter Score.

Why is it important to think about these things when figuring out the next step on our digital maturity roadmap?

Thinking about such questions things through a bigger lens helps us provide multi modality of service through a complementary channel stack. It allows us to fine tune and align the front and the back, which in term allows employees to solve things and requests that came to them through different channels.

Because too often we're not doing that level of analysis. We're just speaking in general terms like oh, we're installing a CRM or we're upgrading a certain part of the core or are we adding a channel or or a store?

Because digitalization discussions are mostly done in a general way, we never really examine where the obstacles are, what we really have, how to do things that we have connect with the reality we want to create.

A better idea we're seeing in our work with clients is to really try and build a digital experience that translates into long term loyalty and the ability to up-sell or cross sell.

One starting point would be using interaction data to build the next best offer, or boost loyalty with situational awareness or extract front end UI design guidance from experience metrics.

The more we start understanding this perspective when planning improvements to the customer experience or the customer journey, the more successful the outcome will be.

So here's a golden rule:

1) Always consider what's going on with the customers and how they want to experience services.

2) Consider what's going on with you and how you're disconnected from customer expectations.

3) Reflect on how those two worlds are interfacing today and how could they be interfacing tomorrow?

When you put all of that on the table, new options will emerge. You will see things you can do really fast, like our remote appraiser, an out of the box, new digital channel that lets you process claims up to 5 times faster, and save money and time into process.

Or what the best next steps would be in implementing more complex, nuanced solutions that connect and and organize your team around this mission of serving the customer, such as a CRM deployment or evolution.

Your next job is figuring out what the future should be like in terms of customer engagement, and then reverse engineer the workflow and technology stack to get there in a way that doesn't create strife within, but actually makes your business faster, better and easier, with every little step you make on the journey ahead.

And if you're stuck, give us a call, we'll get things moving fast.