As a supply-chain organization, every business has to understand that customer service carries a great weightage when it comes to realizing organizational success. While delivering the best customer service levels is becoming increasingly complex in the current scenario, failing to provide the same is a recipe for poor customer relationships and eventually, loss of business.
Legacy-based customer service is a big 'No'
The traditional approach to customer service entails a corrective or preventative approach, waiting for the breakdown to happen. This unplanned occurrence is a huge let down for the customers who have to wait up in order to resume their consumption of the product’s service, when the issue is finally addressed and resolved.
Customer service departments that are often left to operate on a set-it-and-forget-it basis are setting themselves up for failure. Organizations need to be able to gauge whether they have effectively aligned their people, processes, data, and technology with the needs of their customers and business objectives. However, metrics alone don’t guarantee fulfilling customer relationships. If those heaps of data sets don’t drive decisions and actions, everything else is going to be unyielding.
Smart Operations as a key pillar for outstanding customer experience
We are in the post-pandemic times. And failing to transition to a service-leadership approach and include experience data as part of your overall CX strategy is a compulsion. With ‘Smart Operations’ at the core of their functioning, organizations can utilize the benefits of customer intelligence, data analytics and connected devices to keep the following key drivers in check:
‘Digitalization’ that protects service levels and profitability
With a data-driven and digitized approach to tackle inbound and outbound customer Service levels, supply chain organizations can anticipate challenges, protect profits, and drastically improve customer experience. Here’s how that can be done.
Timely, meaningful interventions can help prevent disruption through automated notifications based on specific event triggers
Complete integration of maintenance plans with shop floor schedules can also minimize the impact on customer service.
Comprehensive, real-time visibility of IoT data, production feeds and supply chain operations for all collective pursuits
In order to embrace smart operations and gain the edge in serving your increasingly demanding customers, while also being able to employ limited resources strategically, getting on the front foot is crucial.
- Track performance against top objectives, and SLAs provide a great opportunity to improve customer satisfaction.
- Reduce uncertainty by defining what happens in the event of a breach or breakdown.
- Enable operations management to resolve issues through automated data monitoring as soon as problems arise.
- Leverage suppliers' and sales partners' strengths to increase speed of delivery to customers.
- Remote monitoring of connected devices offers a new growth area for services.
Example: Canon offers its customers higher value-add services and not just simple products. By access to insights on paper and ink usage, customers are able to enjoy the offering with greater transparency that makes their printing assets efficient and optimized the cost and function.
Some of the key facets that supply chain organizations should choose to invest in as part of their smart operations for CX strategy are as follows:
Along with the functions of Smart operations, a personalized and omni-channel customer service strategy can benefit from social listening, customer data, industry trends, real-time engagement, and identify opportunities for seamless CX success.