If I’ve captured your attention by this title, I’ll do my best to keep it. How do “CX” and “Nerd” come together? I’m obsessed with helping companies create better customer experiences and using Oracle’s technology to drive these experiences. It’s just CRM, right?
I’m a huge nerd at heart. I’m curious about trends around business, technology and may have a special hoard of electronics that I’ve collected from years of being an “early adopter.” Remember the Palm Pilot, with its stylus? When I got one, I thought I was the coolest kid on the block when I attached it to my belt. When I pulled out my electronic notebook with a pensive look on my face, I was ready to conquer the world.
I feel that same way about CX today. The reality is that CX is not just CRM. Some of the largest companies around the world have evolved the very definition of what CX is by not just acquiring technology for its own function, but are also paving the way to lessons learned and best practices - much like my Palm Pilot on my belt.
These CX decisions and strategies have made a huge impact to the business’s revenue and are driving the pace of innovation in our digital world. How cool is that?
From one CX Nerd to another, I give you 3 top CX trends.
1. Siloes Be gone. Collaboration, welcome. It used to be about being a leader in your own business department. It’s no longer just about marketing, sales, commerce, and service with successful technology, and shining as the king of our own island. CX Leaders see value in integrated solutions across the entire organization. Leadership, visibility and collaboration allow for teams to work together. This can make all the difference between winning and losing.
Imagine the seamless experience of being able to understand a customer with a 360 degree view from each interaction whenever the customer engages with the business. Contextual conversations and relationships grow because of what resonates and helps the customer within that moment. It’s a win, win.
2. Data with Intent. Data is like bacon. If you’re a vegetarian, it’s tofu steak. It’s no surprise it’s valuable. What matters is what you do with it. First of all, you have to ask, “Is the data we currently have as clean and rich as possible? Are there duplicate data on contact? Do we have as much real-time data about an individual as possible?” Then, do you have ‘actionable’ data? It’s one thing to have that bacon, but how can you really savor its value?
Reimagine how you can personalize and grow your customer relationships by truly understanding who they are and making recommendations based off of “actionable” data. There has always been excitement about AI, but it’s only really powerful if the data you have in your front and back office is clean. You need to continuously enrich it with context to personalize relationships, delight the customer at every moment while building lifetime value.
3. Employee Experience for people like you and me, a modern day work boss. We’re living in this new digital world where there’s a blend of day time and night time activities. When we log off from our day, we likely turn on our “night time” activities that involve instant gratification for whatever our heart desires - food deliveries, streaming movies, video games, virtual workouts, you name it. We’re so fortunate to live in such a technologically advanced era.
Now, when we wake up and log back into our “day time” activities, we expect the same digital urges to be satisfied in our careers. Messaging and video-calling my co-workers, mobile access to my tools, and whatever makes my work life easier, productive, and simple - that’s a nonnegotiable hot commodity.
The blend of day time and night time activities is enhanced at the pace of digital innovation. Providing the right tools for an employee experience has to fit the needs of the employee who works with them every day. Automating and consolidating workflows, sales strategies and pricing models and customizing user experiences will empower your teams to provide superior customer experiences to the end customer. Your co-workers do this all the while singing along to their favorite playlist because the key to this ignition is- they’ll actually enjoy using the tools.
Enter the nerdy conclusion;
- Collaboration and Connection for full visibility,
- Data with intent for building relationships, and
- Digital employee experiences that are impactful and important because they deeply transform the business.
These 3 things are attractive to the business because they increase retention, lower cost and drive growth. Meanwhile, the value of customer experiences is increasing because experiences, both positive and negative, are unforgettable. Time is unreturnable. Moments matter.
If I think back to my top purchases, I think of how long the process took, who advised me with my decisions, and if I got joy out of the entire experience. If you’re a CX nerd like I am, you understand this. I give you a virtual high-five for being a part of an exciting mission and dare I say it, “early adopter” of prioritizing and putting customer experiences first.
Oracle CX has been transforming technology as our digital, personal lives are changing before our very eyes. Some of our latest changes revolve around building a connected CX across every customer touchpoint, embedding intelligence with actionable data, and executing on a fresh design and user experience for the Redwood branding exercise, which I’m excited to be a part of.
Find out why Oracle is being recognized to have “expressed strong interest in expanding its presence in business applications which bodes well for future product investment. It’s already one of the most mature on the market, with a strong roadmap that is toward the leading-edge of CRM innovation.” –2020 CRM Technology Value Matrix, Nucleus Research
To learn more, click here to read my blog about The Path to CX Excellence for Service Organizations.
Click here to check out the April 2020 Nucleus Research report. It discusses how CRM systems have innovated hyper-personalization, automation and have the ability to connect data with customers across all devices and channels. Oracles in named a leader.