[CEM Africa Summit] Employee satisfaction = customer satisfaction

The morning was focused on a customer service staff track and the customer experience.

Dr Pieter Steyn of Barclays started off with a keynote session on closing the gap between customer and staff interactions. He spoke of how to think of all this and work with staff and customer data. When you consider the fact that customer-facing employees sit with a little bit of information from each customer, even if you don't work in silos, this way of doing business can be dangerous if there's no sharing.

Added to this, there's always a mismatch between what we think of ourselves as a business and what our customers think of us, but remember that your customer experience can only ever match the employee experience, as they are your best advocates.

© Andriy Popov – 123RF.com

Next, Cecilia Jofre, executive of business development and account management at Intuate Group, spoke of six ways to improve the customers' experience. She started with an overview of why CEM is keeping CEOs awake at night, with a Gartner 2012 study showing the top business priorities for CEOs over the past five years as retaining and enhancing new customers, attracting new customers and cost reduction/efficiencies.

The new face of CEM

There's also been a merging of two mega-trends creating, what Jofre calls the CEM perfect storm: the first of these is the rise of mobile, at a faster rate than any technological innovation before, the second is Generation Y expecting us to know who they are and what they want, and telling their friends and family about their experiences with your brand. They are hyperconnected and supercritical.

That's why the most expensive piece of real estate is an icon on a Gen Y's screen. We need to give them experiences, not products or services.

Linked to this, Jofre said that customer interaction is the new battleground for effectiveness. She offered six practical ways for businesses to improve customer experience:

1. Customer centricity.
2. New measurement criteria.
3. Knowledge and support.
4. Multichannel accessibility and consistency.
5. Feedback loops to listen to voice of customers.
6. Personalisation for smart interaction record with clients.

Another speaker on the day, Leré Smith, the head of client experience at Momentum, spoke of various initiatives they've put in place at Momentum. She emphasised that CEO involvement is not optional, all leaders need to constantly reinforce the message of the importance of client-centricity.

She ended by highlighting what she calls "A small thing with huge power: the words we use in the business." Make an effort to shift from product- to customer-centricity in the words you use, and all the process will be that much easier.