Why going digital should not be a binary decision……

Why going digital should not be a binary decision……

 

As the cost-of-living crisis continues, fuelled by rocketing energy bills and rising inflation, the personal and financial situations of the customers we are looking to engage with are becoming more and more complex.

 

During such times, the way in which we orchestrate the journey these customers experience whilst they engage with us is critical in ensuring we reach the most desirable outcome for all involved. Turning to digital solutions provides a fantastic opportunity to scale operations quickly, but it is key that in deploying such solutions we do not create binary decision points for customers, in essence creating a digital world that the customer feels trapped within unable to reach a human-to-human solution should they so wish. In the same way should a customer be speaking with an agent and wish to continue their journey through a digital medium, they must be able seamlessly transition the customer to a self-service environment to continue the journey in their own time.

 

When examining how we orchestrate the customer journey in this way a further key point to recognise is that the exchange of information between customer and the organisation must be looked upon as a spectrum with the simplest of digital journeys at one end and an enriched, well guided human to human conversation at the other. When deployed correctly and effectively both are hyper-effective in reaching the most positive outcome, but understanding the place for each, especially when looking to ingest complex or sensitive customer information, is key in retaining and maintaining high levels of customer engagement and satisfaction.

 

In these most challenging of times, it is well recognised that digital solutions provide the most effective point of initial customer engagement – they have minimal barriers to access and allow customers to engage in a non-threatening and safe environment, especially if the reason for engagement is one that is of a sensitive or complex nature. Once that initial engagement is achieved, the business or organisation has an obligation to steer that customer journey accurately and coherently. A resolution point may be clear from the out-set but where the individual challenges faced are multi-faceted, enriched customer information may be needed to reach that desired point of resolution meaning that only a conversation can truly identify a solution.

The decision to ‘Go Digital’ by a customer should never be seen as a binary one, instead simply a step of resolving a situation with a positive outcome.

This is where journey orchestration is key – as is the personalisation of the individual’s customer experience. Using all available customer data, effective sign posting and next best action decisioning, we can look to drive a customer journey that may well begin as a digital one and end as conversation with an agent and vice versa, effectively, and seamlessly travelling through a truly omni-channel experience to reach the desired positive point of resolution. We must look to use digital solutions in a myriad of ways if we are to achieve the most from such channels; from that simple customer journey allowing a situation to be quickly resolved; to being that first point of engagement with a customer allowing that initial relationship and bond of trust to be built before they continue on a lengthier and more complex journey towards resolution. As called out at the beginning of this article, the decision to ‘Go Digital’ by a customer should never be seen as a binary one, instead simply a step of resolving a situation with a positive outcome.

 

The challenge is finding that digital solution provider that allows you to have the agility to configure and personalise your digital customer journeys at pace in order to mirror the ever changing and fluid personal and financial situations of your customers. Often such configurability and flexibility either comes at a high cost or requires high levels of technical understanding or often both!

 

At DebtStream we recognise the importance of not only providing a cutting-edge digital customer experience, we also understand the criticality of empowering our clients to personalise the digital journey of their customers. Through our ‘drag and drop’ decisioning engine, applying rules and configuration on a ‘no code’ basis we enable our clients to ensure that the customer experience is tailored to the individuals needs and most importantly driven towards providing them with the most beneficial outcome possible.

Book a demo to see how we can help you build such an experience for your customers today.

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