How to Establish a Culture of Phenomenal Customer Experience

We claim to understand the importance of customer experience. Yet, too often we fail to truly internalize how customer experience affects buyer behavior, and impacts the way individuals interact with brands, with sellers, and with marketers.

We invited Sarindar Frost to help us take a deeper look.

Sarindar is the Senior Director of eCommerce Customer Service at DHL for the Asia Pacific region.

She joined us on The B2B Revenue Executive Experience to discuss how industries across the world are being transformed by a deeper understanding of customer experience.

Here are the trends she’s seeing:

Customer Experience Budgets Have Increased

Sarindar has worked with DHL for 29 years in various CX capacities across the organization, and on 2 different continents. She’s witnessed an evolution in DHL’s approach to customer experience throughout the organization.

Customer experience budget size and attention from upper-level management, as well as overall alignment of the organization toward CX, has moved from an existential consideration, to a holistic approach within the organization. And, she’s noticed this same trend across other companies as well.

Every Channel is a Customer Channel

This is fairly obvious for a variety of touch points, but for others, it’s a less intuitive concept.

Finance is a perfect example. How does the invoice look to the customer? If it’s unclear, and written from a financial professional’s perspective, instead of a customer perspective, this fails the litmus test.

“We can no longer think of business operations from an internal perspective. We have to dissect every interaction from the customer perspective.“

SARINDAR FROST,
SENIOR DIRECTOR, ECOMMERCE CUSTOMER SERVICE, DHL ASIA PACIFIC

As industries continue to undergo digital transformation, the companies who excel will be those that understand that every touchpoint with customers must be incredibly customer-centric.

In the End, It’s All About the People Within Your Organization

A variety of factors makeup how an organization will fare with creating an amazing customer experience.

Here are a few of the top factors Sarindar mentioned:

• Training
• KPIs
• Customer feedback
• Internal team

The most important aspect is your internal team: When you land the right people within your organization, and they are all-in on customer experience, that is the key that truly unlocks the magic.

These individuals must be proactive, and be able to understand what the customer is not saying, the-in-between-the-lines type of understanding that comes with high-caliber CX reps and leaders.

The Vital Role of Customer Feedback in Customer Experience

There are 3 things to understand about customer feedback:

Don’t Get Hung Up on Negative Feedback:

Far too many people get hung up on negative feedback. Feedback is always good, and it’s always a chance to push continuous improvement. Don’t avoid it – invite it.

Don’t Wait to Put Out a Product Until It’s Perfect:

If you are following the first point, then don’t wait to ship. Do it. Of course, make the right calls, and truly think your process, service, content, or product through, but waiting until it’s perfect is detrimental to the improvement process. Get something done, and course-correct as customer feedback comes through the pipe.

Address Problems with Agility:

If you are inviting feedback, shipping quickly, then respond with agility. Customers are willing to go through growing pains with your company. Most are actually rather patient, and they understand that mistakes will happen. As long as the organization is honest, and responds with agility to their feedback, customers will hang out with you through issues.

“Far too many organizations are overly concerned when they get negative feedback. For me, it’s an opportunity to improve.“

SARINDAR FROST,
SENIOR DIRECTOR, ECOMMERCE CUSTOMER SERVICE, DHL ASIA PACIFIC

The Right CX Tech Stack for Your Organization Matters

When you have the right people, the right training, the right culture, and the right KPIs in place, the tech comes behind to enhance the customer experience. A major benefit of technology, is the double-edged approach it has.

Technology enables companies to be responsive at the personal level, and yet predictive at the revenue level.

So how do you select the right tech for your organization?

Here are a few components Sarindar said to consider:

• Understand your internal processes and culture first, including your typical buyer journey, and your prospects. Then you can go into the world to find the technology that complements those processes and your customers’ journey.

• Consider focus groups. Before building their technology stack, Sarindar asked prospective companies for case studies and current customers. They sat down with customers and asked about their experience with the tech, what their learning journey was like, what was helpful, what wasn’t, etc. You’d be surprised at the intel companies are willing to share.

We Ask Every Podcast Guest These 2 Questions:

1. What’s Effective in Earning 15 Minutes of Your Time? “When an individual shares information that is sharp, succinct, and they understand my business before they come to see me.”
2. Your Grandest Piece of Advice for a Sales or Marketing Professional? “Do your homework, understand the organization, and what approach you want to take with the organization. From a selling perspective: be genuine, be honest, and create a lasting impression.”

This post is based on an interview with Sarindar Frost Senior Director of eCommerce Customer Service at DHL, for the Asia Pacific region. To hear this episode, and many more like it, subscribe to the B2B Revenue Executive Experience.

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