Customer Service Key to Growth of any Company; Institute of Customer Experience Report

Although organizations have embraced documenting customer service (CS) strategies and regular reporting, only 17.9 percent of the reports are tabled to top leadership.

A disconnect exists between customer experience practitioners and senior management thus increased executive attention is required if Customer Experience (CX) is to have relevance organizations.

According to a report released by the Institute of Customer Experience on The State of Customer Service in Kenya 2017, Customer service as a business function with the clarity of roles and deliverables is being embraced.

However, only 18 percent of the organizations surveyed had team leaders whose title expressed customer experience. The shift from customer service to customer experience has not been widely adopted.

According to the report, 54 percent of the organizations surveyed only allocate between 1 – 4 percent of the total organization budget to customer experience activities. Although organizations acknowledge that customer service is an important driver of business, the budget apportionment is not reflective of this commitment.

The report further noted that 85 percent of the participating organizations reported the presence of a Customer Service Department.

In line with the objective to have CX as a business unit with return on investment reporting, the existence of specific department handling customer experience matters is indeed a high impact corporate investment.

64 percent of the organizations surveyed had a documented customer service strategy. Documentation is critical to the success of excellent service delivery implementation as CX strategy must form a core strategic pillar in the organization’s overall corporate strategy to ensure sustainable business success.

It is observed that documentation of customer experience strategy has significant advantages across the organization. A total of 53 percent felt there was a direct impact on customer service with 35 percent indicating improved CS, 9 percent all-inclusive customer service, and a further 9 percent customer-centric service.

17 percent reported efficient decision making that is key to facilitating strategic planning. Other benefits indicated include clarity of roles and deliverables by employees 13 percent, improved communication 13 percent, and increased knowledge about the customer 4 percent.

These advantages serve to further confirm the importance of ensuring organization responsibility towards delivering excellent customer experiences.

50.9 percent prepare customer service reports on a monthly basis, 26.3 percent on a quarterly basis and the restless frequently. Whereas monthly reports are important to plug into the business monthly reporting schedule, a daily dashboard with CX metrics would be the idea that organizations should aspire to implement.

Improvement and corrective actions arising from these reports should evidence both transformational and incremental initiatives to ensure the reports are worthwhile in improving customer experience.

61 percent have the term customer service in their titles while 18 percent use the term Customer experience. Customer care appears in 16 percent of the titles, and others include Public relations manager, senior principal relations manager, service delivery manager and service quality manager.

This is indicative that the shift from customer service to customer experience has not been fully embraced. More work needs to be done to entrench customer experience that is strategic and cuts across the entire business.