According to Schmitt (2010), customer experience management (CEM) is an assembly of methodologies that companies use to track, supervise, and organize interactions between customers and the organization throughout the lifecycle of a customer. Its main objective is to maximize the interactions on the side of the customer with an end goal of fostering customer loyalty. As such, managing customer experiences requires organizations to create strategies that incorporate all customer interactions. Besides, CEM recommends that companies adopt 360 views of their customers, with integrated, and updated data on their accounts. Such interactions are achievable through text, live chats on social media, phone calls, and website purchases. In a competitive market, customer experience plays a crucial role in the overall success of the organization. Retaining customers is often directly related to services they get from a company. In business environments, new customers can be attracted to a company if the services they offer are ideal for them.
For this research study. I will focus on Credit Union Australia (CUA) bank. A bank offers several services to clients. Some of them include; everyday banking, loans, health insurance, insurance, and foreign cash services among others. These services are accessible in the banking hall, website, mobile applications, there social media pages, and through emails. For the purposes of this research, I will limit my study on service delivery. As such, my focus will be on customer experiences with CUA bank. Even though it is a very big bank in terms of operations, my experience when I went to activate online banking was very devastating. I had to wait for over two hours before I got served. From that desk, I was assured of getting a confirmation email shortly but unfortunately it took two days.
Since I was disappointed with their customer care experience, I took the initiative to ask some of their customer experiences management about their services. The results seemed the same to what I experienced.
To achieve results for this study, I came up with a couple of survey questions to get an insight of service delivery with CUA bank.
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Among the people I interacted with, the majority of them, 83 percent, thirty out of 36 have been members of CUA bank for over 5 years. This means they have stayed with the bank long enough to give a rational opinion of their customer experience.
On the other hand, 20 people rated the service delivery of CUA as 3. This means that more than half of the people are averagely satisfied with the services of the bank. Besides, 5 people rated CUA services at 4, and the four people rated their services at 5. However, seven people rated CUA services at 2. Statistically, the majority of the customers, 80 percent, which represent 29 out of 36 are somehow contented with services they receive. Despite the overwhelming satisfaction, the remaining groups need attention.
Among the mediums of service delivery that the company uses, the majority of the people tend to like social media when making inquiries. Over 70 percent said that they are mostly using social media and thus making it easy for them to interact with the bank.
Most people are not happy with banking hall services. They attribute the experience with long queues and slow services delivery, where they end up wasting a lot of time. In the contrary, some people are happy with a mobile application that brings banking services to their phones.
Rawson, Duncan, and Jones (2013) notes that a pain point is a real or a perceived problem. Such pain points create opportunities for companies to grow as they sought for the solutions to address the pain points. In this research study, pain points for CUA bank include; long queues in the banking hall and slow response on service delivery.
Long queues in the banking hall. CUA banking hall is often full of customers who seek for their services. As such, the banking hall is characterized by long queues that make customers bored and disgusted at the end of the day. Apart from the long queues, attendants take long to serve an individual customer. Therefore, many end up leaving the banking hall without getting the desired service. Johnston and Kong (2011) found out that when the service quality is high, then the clients will be contented with it, and this satisfaction is what constitutes a good customer experience. On that note, CUA should find ways of streamlining their customer experience to retain the existing clients.
Slow response to service delivery. CUA bank has a slow response rate to customers on email services. A couple of customers complained of having to wait for confirmation longer than expected. Such delays not only affect customers emotionally but also interfere with business customer relationship (Gentile, Spiller & Noci, 2007). As such, it is therefore prudent for the company to put strategies in place to address such concerns. This may involve hiring more personnel to meet concerns of customers at an appropriate time. It is acceptable that clients’ satisfaction and future behaviors about a particular service is significantly influenced by their emotions when they first encountered the experience.
For CUA bank to realize meaningful growth, Buttle (2009) recommends that it should adopt customer relationship management models which can help manage an organization’s with current and potential future customers. In particular, IDIC model will work in this situation. According to Buttle (2009), the model developed by Peppers and Rogers suggests that organizations can take initiatives to build, keep, and retain long-term relationships with customers. These strategies include; interaction, differentiate, identify, and customized service delivery.
Identify. Foss and Stone (2002) observes that the CUA should identify their customers and find ways of keeping them. For example, trying to solve the problem of customers waiting for a long time in the queues will help retain such customers today and in the future. Such a move will solidify customer base and increase satisfaction.
Differentiate. Another way of improving customer experience is differentiating the customers in terms of value and need. Identifying customers which create more value and offering more services to them will work to the advantage of the business (Chaudhry, 2007). This may also involve using the most appropriate channel when providing customer care services. Since many customers embrace social media as a tool of communication, CUA can increase their presence and serve the many customers online.
Interaction. Besides differentiation, increasing the level of interaction with customers is a sure way of retaining the existing customers (Buttle, 2009). Adopting appropriate interaction platform for customers will help make customers loyal as well as enabling CUA bank to build long-term relationships.
Customize. Categorizing customers according to their value and need will make it easy to customize services for them. CUA bank can customize their offers and communications which will ensure meeting of customer’s expectations. Sending personal e-mails can really help in improving customer experience instead of them waiting for long hours in the banking hall.
According to Lemke, Clark, and Wilson (2011), a touchpoint refers to ways through which customers can interact with a business. It can be through a mobile application, website, person to person or any other form of communication. Touchpoints give customers an opportunity share their perception of the business which ultimately enables them to form an opinion (Stein & Ramaseshan, 2016). Improving presence on social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snap Chat enable the business to provide services to more customers which eventually improve their experience. Such media is also cost effective and time saving for customers who are far away from the banking halls. Furthermore, the survey indicated that many customers prefer social media in accessing services of CUA bank.
In customer experience management, touchpoints allow customers to interact with the brand of the company. Zomerdijk and Voss (2011) assert that touchpoints enable customers to experience the brand or organization, products, services whenever they interact with the company across multiple channels. Therefore, taking up this opportunity entails revamping social media presence to cater for customers’ needs adequately.
Service experience in any organization involve products, process, and people. CUA banks have many products and broad customer base which are very good for its survival. However, the current state of their process needs immediate attention. Issues such as slow response and long queues in the banking hall need to change. When the bank considers those changes, it will reduce costs by reducing customer churn, as well as improve customer loyalty (Payne & Frow, 2005). Furthermore, it will strengthen the brand preference and boost sales with incremental sales realized from new and existing customers. After implementing the strategies, the rating of the bank will improve and become a market leader as it commands the largest market share.
References
Buttle, F. (2009). Customer relationship management: concepts and technologies. Routledge.
Chaudhry, P. E. (2007). Developing a process to enhance customer relationship management for small entrepreneurial businesses in the service sector. Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, 9(1), 4-23.
Foss, B., & Stone, M. (2002). CRM in financial services: A practical guide to making customer relationship management work. Kogan Page Publishers.
Gentile, C., Spiller, N., & Noci, G. (2007). How to sustain the customer experience:: An overview of experience components that co-create value with the customer. European Management Journal, 25(5), 395-410.
Johnston, R., & Kong, X. (2011). The customer experience: a road-map for improvement. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 21(1), 5-24.
Lemke, F., Clark, M., & Wilson, H. (2011). Customer experience quality: an exploration in business and consumer contexts using repertory grid technique. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39(6), 846-869.
Payne, A., & Frow, P. (2005). A strategic framework for customer relationship management. Journal of marketing, 69(4), 167-176.
Rawson, A., Duncan, E., & Jones, C. (2013). The truth about customer experience. Harvard Business Review, 91(9), 90-98.
Schmitt, B. H. (2010). Customer experience management: A revolutionary approach to connecting with your customers. John Wiley & Sons.
Stein, A., & Ramaseshan, B. (2016). Towards the identification of customer experience, touch point elements. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 30, 8-19.
Zomerdijk, L. G., & Voss, C. A. (2011). NSD processes and practices in experiential services. Journal of product innovation management, 28(1), 63-80.
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