9781119279457CustomerExperienceFDMitelSpecialEd_21942 (1)

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Customer
Experience
Mitel Special Edition
by Elaine Marmel
These materials are © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
Customer Experience For Dummies®, Mitel Special Edition
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Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book......................................................................... 1
Icons Used in This Book............................................................. 2
Beyond the Book......................................................................... 2
Chapter 1: Recognizing the Evolving

Customer Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Taking a Walk Down Memory Lane.......................................... 3
From the brick and mortar store . . ............................... 4
. . . into the digital age...................................................... 6
Mobile Commerce is Expanding............................................... 7
Chapter 2: Examining Today’s Customer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Who Is Today’s Customer?...................................................... 10
How, Where, and Why Consumers Interact.......................... 11
Understanding the Internet of Things.................................... 12
Why Does it Matter?................................................................. 14
Chapter 3: Assessing the Current Situation . . . . . . . . . . 17

Identifying Customer Experience Influencers....................... 17
Examining the Current Setup.................................................. 18
Understanding the Costs and Complexity
of the Status Quo................................................................... 20
So, Where Do You Go From Here?.......................................... 22
Chapter 4: Understanding the Value

in Getting it Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Balancing Customer Needs...................................................... 26
Excellent Customer Experiences Generate Revenue........... 29
Maximizing Productivity.......................................................... 30
Let the Internet of Things Improve Your Profits.................. 31
The Bottom Line . . . ................................................................ 31
iv Customer Experience For Dummies, Mitel Special Edition
Chapter 5: Providing the Optimal Customer

Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
The Big Picture.......................................................................... 34
Best Practices for Getting It Right.......................................... 34
Performing a health check............................................. 35
Analyzing customer interaction flow........................... 35
Analyzing work flow....................................................... 36
Training............................................................................ 36
Examining existing technology..................................... 36
Considering deployment options................................. 37
How Mitel Can Help.................................................................. 37
Case study: Red Funnel Ferries..................................... 38
Case study: Centrinex.................................................... 39
Chapter 6: Ten Customer Experience

Facts to Remember. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Introduction
B usiness owners (and non‐profit, healthcare, and govern-
ment agencies) know that many factors — the costs you
incur to produce, market, and support your product, as well
as the quality of the product you sell and how satisfied your
customers are with their buying experience — affect their
success. In fact, customer satisfaction has become a game‐
changer in the digital technology age . . . more than any other
factor influencing profitability.
The way people communicate with each other has evolved,

but what about the way that your business communicates
with your customers? Today’s consumers carry with them
technologies like smartphones that enable them to connect
with your organization in seconds and communicate with
hundreds of their closest friends instantly. Because of these
technologies, customer satisfaction can make or break your
business.
To survive and profit, today’s businesses need to focus on

their customers. Businesses need to know and understand the
customers they serve, address the methods of communication
their customers prefer to use, and evaluate their businesses
based on the quality of customer experience they deliver.
Are you up to the challenge?
About This Book

If you aren’t striving to listen to your customers, meet their
demands, exceed their expectations, and deliver consistent,
quality customer experience, you risk losing your loyal cus-
tomers, your potential customers, your profits, your reputa-
tion, your employees, and even, ultimately, your business.
This book is aimed at decision makers and influencers who

can drive the way your organization chooses to meet the
demands of providing the best possible customer experience.
2 Customer Experience For Dummies, Mitel Special Edition
It’s also aimed at those people who must support the deci-
sions made about the methods you choose to offer your cus-
tomers a superior experience when they interact with you.
Use the information in this book to help you understand

how the customer experience has been changing and how
to meet the challenge presented by this evolving experi-
ence. Identify the customers who buy from you most often
and examine the methods they use to communicate. Take a
look at the ways you currently support your customers and
the potential factors that prevent you from providing an out-
standing customer experience. Finally, consider the ways that
offering an outstanding customer experience can pay off and
examine techniques you can employ to ensure success with
your customers.
Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, I occasionally use special icons to call
attention to important information. You won’t see any smiley
faces winking at you, but you’ll definitely want to take note!
Here’s what you can expect.
This icon points out juicy tidbits that are likely to be repeat-
edly useful to you — so don’t forget them.
Think of these icons as the fodder of advice columns. They

offer (hopefully) wise advice or a bit more information about
a topic under discussion.
Danger, Will Robinson, danger! Well, okay, the information

isn’t really life‐threatening. In this book, you see this icon
when I’m trying to help you avoid mistakes that can cost
money.
Beyond the Book

This book can only cover so much in 48 pages. However, you
can find more information at www.mitel.com/cc. Discover
what Mitel’s customer experience solutions and services are,
watch webcasts, read, whitepapers, and much more!
Chapter 1
Recognizing the Evolving
Customer Experience
In This Chapter
▶▶Examining a customer buying experience prior to the digital age
▶▶Examining the same experience happening digitally
▶▶Understanding that the digital experience is expanding
W ith the advent of the digital communication age, cus-

tomers have new ways to communicate and shop that
didn’t exist 30 years ago. Effectively, for the customer — and
therefore for your business — the world has become a much
smaller place.
Taking a Walk Down

Memory Lane
To understand just how things have changed with the onset
of digital technology, this section examines the marketplace
30 years ago and compares it to the marketplace today.
You could go back more than 30 years ago, but that isn’t nec-
essary to demonstrate just how much the buying experience
has changed for today’s consumer.
From the brick and

mortar store . . .
Thirty years ago, customers shopped at local shopping malls.
They visited their doctors’ offices to get test results and
phoned hotels, airlines, and car rental agencies to make res-
ervations. (And, sometimes, they simply went to travel agen-
cies to have someone else make all their arrangements.) They
checked into hotel rooms and airline flights at the hotel’s
front desk and the airline ticket counter. Thirty years ago,
customers purchased pizza and tickets to sporting or cultural
events by standing in line or making telephone calls.
The buying experience was completely different 30 years ago.

Take a look at the 30‐year‐old financial transaction experience.
If a customer wanted to make a savings account deposit or

withdrawal, he brought a bank‐issued passbook — a record
of the account’s deposits and withdrawals — with him on his
trip to the bank, along with the money — cash or checks —
that he wanted to deposit. The bank teller would record
the transaction in the passbook and stamp the passbook to
make the transaction official. The passbook entry was the
customer’s receipt from the bank for the transaction and the
passbook showed the balance in the account.
If a customer needed to deposit one or more checks to his

checking account, the process changed somewhat. The cus-
tomer would manually prepare a deposit ticket, typically, but
not always, at home. The deposit ticket identified the amount
of the checks and, in some cases, the names of the people who
issued the checks. The deposit ticket would also contain the
bank’s routing number and the customer’s account number.
The customer then went to the bank, where he waited in line

until a bank teller could help him. (If he hadn’t completed the
deposit ticket at home, he’d fill one out at the bank.) When
the customer reached the teller’s window, he’d present the
checks and the deposit ticket. The teller would work some
magic with the bank’s equipment to record the transaction,
keep the checks and the deposit ticket the customer com-
pleted, and then provide a deposit receipt to the customer.
The customer would keep the deposit receipt as his record
of the transaction until the account statement from the bank
Chapter 1: Recognizing the Evolving Customer Experience 5
arrived in the mail. Once the customer confirmed the deposit
on the bank statement, he could, if he wanted, throw the
receipt away. The customer was responsible for keeping a
record of the deposit.
Customers used their checking accounts when they spent

money. If a customer bought something from a store at the
local mall, they often wrote a check to pay for the item — and
typically they had to present at least two forms of identifica-
tion before the retailer would accept the check because retail-
ers had no assurance that the customer had enough money in
the checking account to cover the cost of the purchase. The
customer’s only alternative was to pay with cash.
To obtain cash, customers wrote checks to themselves, went

to the bank, stood in line for a bank teller and presented the
check. The teller would check the account’s balance and pro-
vide the cash.
Customers paid phone, electric, water, and other bills by writ-

ing checks and mailing them to vendors. As the customers
wrote checks, either to pay bills or to make a purchase from
a store at the local mall, they would record information about
each check — the date it was written, the name of the check’s
recipient, and the check amount — in the checkbook register.
Customers also recorded deposits in the checkbook register
so that they could determine the account’s balance at any
point in time.
Vendors who received checks from customers as payment

for items purchased at stores or for phone, electric, water,
and other bills would bring the checks to a bank as deposits,
completing deposit tickets and waiting in line for a teller, as
previously described. The banks would keep the checks the
vendors presented and return them to the customer along
with the account’s monthly statement.
Before the digital age, your customer’s experience involved a

lot of people and required a lot of time invested both by busi-
nesses and by customers, creating a lot of points in the buying
experience where things could go wrong. And, your custom-
er’s experience was localized. That is, if a customer had a bad
experience — like having to wait in line for an hour — he might
tell three or four people or, at most, five or six people.
My, how things have changed.
. . . into the digital age

With the advent of the digital age, today’s customers shop
online. They check their healthcare test results online. They
text, tweet, or use a browser to make reservations at hotels,
airlines, and car rental agencies, and to purchase tickets to
sporting or cultural events. They check into hotel rooms and
airline flights online. They even text emojis to purchase pizza!
Today, customers handle financial transactions totally dif-

ferent. There’s rarely any need to physically go to the bank.
You can make a deposit to any bank account — checking or
savings — by using your smartphone and your bank’s mobile
app. The app prompts you to select the account in which to
deposit the money and supply the amount of the deposit.
You then take photos of the front and back of each the check
you intend to deposit — no more deposit tickets — and you
tap Send. The app connects with your bank and, in a few sec-
onds, you see a message on your smartphone indicating that
you’ve made a deposit. And, that message is, essentially, your
receipt.
Customers can still write checks today to pay for goods or

services they purchase, but most don’t because of the hassles
associated with providing identification. Most customers find
it much easier to simply use debit cards to make a payment
directly from a checking account. Or, they use credit cards to
postpone payment until they receive a bill from the company.
Even the way customers use debit and credit cards is chang-
ing; they don’t need to swipe a card, sign, or enter a PIN any-
more. They just tap on the machine or use their phones to
charge their cards.
To pay bills from the electric company or the gas company,

customers can write checks but again, most find it sim-
pler and easier — and cheaper, since there’s no postage
involved — to visit their bank’s website and use the bank’s
online bill payment tool. Online bill payment tools enable
the customer to set up vendors just once and then pay them
whenever bills come due.
For the most part, banking has become self‐service. When

customers need cash, they can go to the bank, but they no
longer need to go inside. They can, instead, use the bank’s
Chapter 1: Recognizing the Evolving Customer Experience 7
automated teller machine (ATM) to withdraw money from any
account. Fewer people are involved in the transaction, and
customers spend less time in line, not to mention that they
also bank on their own schedules.
Customers can also make deposits at ATMs, but, why bother

when using a smartphone is so much easier?
Customers can check the balances of all bank accounts by

logging in to their bank’s website either via a browser or using
their smartphone’s mobile app. The way customers handle
financial transactions has essentially eliminated the need for
savings passbooks, checkbook registers, and, in most cases,
even writing checks.
Mobile Commerce is Expanding

Effectively, a customer’s interaction with a business today
rarely occurs in person. Most contact happens through elec-
tronic means. Thirty years ago, businesses drove technologi-
cal advances. But today, consumers are driving technological
advances. They are demanding the ability to interact with
your business in the way that is most convenient for them.
Further, today’s consumer choices have broadened; they

aren’t limited to visiting the local mall to shop. Instead, using
digital technology, they can shop anyplace in the world. Just
think Christmas: Because of expanding mobile commerce,
customers can get their shopping done at the busiest time of
year without setting foot in a store or post office.
Not long ago most of us limited the use of our mobile devices
to finding basic information. We reserved conducting highly
personal interactions, like shopping for goods or making finan-
cial transactions, to a more “secure” location, like the local
store or bank. We didn’t yet trust that our devices were secure
enough to enable us to safely make purchases or pay bills.
Today, many of us are confident that these issues have been

resolved. We’re more willing to complete the transaction on
a mobile device. And, because so many of us are willing to
use mobile devices to shop or bank, we’re in a position to
make and execute purchase decisions 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week, and 365 days a year.
That kind of demand from customers puts today’s businesses

in the hot seat. You’ve always had to meet your customers’
needs; now, you have to do so at an increased pace, during
new hours, using new methods. While voice‐based communi-
cation with customers still plays a strong role, consumers are
increasingly looking to digital communication methods and
demanding the flexibility to interact with companies through
the customer’s preferred media.
And, because customers are no longer limited to making pur-

chases locally, you have to make certain that providing posi-
tive customer experience moves up in the hierarchy of your
business’s priorities. In this way, your business goals will
reflect the importance of customer satisfaction and help you
keep existing customers and gain new ones.
To compete and grow your revenue, you’ve always had to

understand who your customer is, but today, that under-
standing is even more important. Without sound knowledge
about your customer, you can’t expect to deliver an outstand-
ing customer experience.
Chapter 2
Examining Today’s
Customer
In This Chapter
▶▶Understanding who today’s customers are
▶▶Examining buying habits
▶▶Taking a look at the Internet of Things
▶▶Understanding the consequences of negative customer experiences
B ecause customers’ interactions with businesses have

changed and evolved with the introduction of digital
devices, traditional customer service measures are no longer
adequate. As a result of these rapidly evolving trends, an out-
standing customer experience is (or should be) top of mind
for C‐level executives.
Although you’ve always needed to know who your customers

are to succeed in business, today knowing your customers
and how they want to interact is more important than ever.
In addition to knowing how long a customer has been pur-
chasing your products, you need to take a look at the myriad
buying methods and patterns used by today’s consumers.
That is, you must understand who is out there buying your
goods and services and the means they tend to use to make
purchases. And let’s face it; today’s digital economy has
redefined customer service. Your customer’s expectations of
customer service are higher than they’ve ever been before.
Knowing who your customers are will help you determine the
best ways to communicate with them and offer outstanding
service along with goods.
Who Is Today’s Customer?

Today’s consumer spans a variety of generations, ranging
from the post‐war era to today’s teens (and even younger,
because digital capabilities provide the means to buy without
going into a local store). And each of these consumers prefers
a different way to communicate. Because all of them are your
customers, you’re now facing new challenges in the ways you
interact with them.
Demographically, the various generations of people have been

given generally accepted names:
✓✓The Post‐World War II generation

✓✓The Baby Boomers
✓✓Those from Generation X
✓✓Those from Generation Y (also called the millennials)
✓✓Those from Generation Z
A major segment of the buying population comes from

the post‐war era, the Baby Boomer era, and Generation X.
Although where a person fits in these generations is a matter
of opinion, most people accept that these folks were born
between 1928 and 1976 and came of age between 1946 and
1994. Today, they range in age from 49 to 70.
The rest of the buying population comes from Generation Y

and Generation Z, and they also comprise a significant
number of consumers with significant spending power. Again,
most people generally accept that Generation Y and Z people
were born since 1977 and came of age between 1998 and now.
Today, they range in age from 10 to 32.
Some demographers divide the Baby Boomer era into two

groups: those born between 1946 and 1954, and those born
between 1955 and 1965. These demographers label the two
groups as Boomers I or the Baby Boomers, and Boomers II
or Generation Jones. For this discussion, I view these folks as
one group and refer to them as the Baby Boomers.
Chapter 2: Examining Today’s Customer 11
Don’t forget about business‐to‐business transactions. To pro-
vide an outstanding customer experience to the people with
whom you do business, determine which generations are typi-
cally the decision makers in the businesses to which you sell
goods and services, and identify the means with which they’re
most comfortable making purchases.
How, Where, and Why

Consumers Interact
Those from the post‐war era, the Baby Boomer era, and even
many Generation Xers are often, though not exclusively, most
comfortable frequenting brick and mortar stores and com-
municating with sellers via telephone or in person. Although
they’re declining in numbers, they’re a large enough popula-
tion buying your goods and services that you need to be able
to cater to their needs.
Generation Y and Generation Z have grown up with technol-

ogy. They’re increasingly mobile and tech‐savvy. They’re
connected digitally to the world more than any of the previ-
ous generations. They prefer to use smartphones to com-
municate electronically to shop, text, tweet, check email, and
surf the Internet. They rarely use their smartphones to actu-
ally make phone calls (a factoid that often baffles the older
generations — after all, it is a phone!) and tend to reserve
phone calls for keeping in touch with parents and grandpar-
ents. Most Generation Y and Z folks would rather text, tweet,
or use a browser to order a pizza than call to place the order.
Generations Y and Z tend to be mobile in their use of technol-

ogy. Although the other generations may not be as mobile
in their use of technology, many of these folks are just as
gadget‐happy as the folks from Generation Y and Z. The post‐
war and Baby Boomer generation might not comfortably shop
from their phones, but many of them have migrated more and
more to shopping online using some flavor of computer — a
desktop or a tablet, for example — and a web browser.
The online buying population is huge.
Many of the very elderly rely on younger family members to

help them buy the things they need — and, of course, the
younger family members are, most often, fans of shopping
digitally.
It’s safe to say that today’s consumers, regardless of gen-

eration, are self‐reliant and happy to manage their relation-
ships with a business without any human interaction (see
Figure 2‐1).
Figure 2-1: Today’s consumers are comfortable serving themselves.
Today’s consumers expect the flexibility and convenience of

interacting with your business using the methods that make
the most sense to them at any given time, using mobile apps,
the Internet, email, SMS text messaging, and social media.
Respected market research organizations are pointing to the
fact that, over the coming years, companies will no longer be
able to rely on voice communications to handle inquiries and
process new business.
For a seamless, truly digital customer experience, your

business should be equipped to provide the same prompt,
informed customer service across all channels.
Understanding the Internet

of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) can improve the customer experi-
ence today while also having a significant impact on improv-
ing it in the future.
“How does that work?” you ask.
Well, to succeed in today’s business world, companies need

to become customer‐centric. Customer‐centric organizations
anticipate future needs by looking at behavioral patterns and
market trends and leverage data from inside and outside their
organizations. They provide unique, memorable experiences
that are seamless across all of the possible interaction chan-
nels. And, most importantly, customer‐centric organizations
define themselves not by the products they make and sell,
but by the customers they serve, the customer problems they
solve, and the quality customer experience they deliver.
Understanding your customer inside and out so you can

anticipate future needs, proactively engaging them, and con-
tinually exceeding their expectations is the most difficult part
of becoming a customer‐centric organization.
For almost a decade, “things” — electronics, sensors, and soft-

ware that can be sensed, monitored, and controlled remotely
across network infrastructure — have used the Internet more
than people. This network of objects is commonly known as
the IoT. Gartner forecasts 4.9 billion connected things will be
in use in 2015, up 30 percent from 2014, and that this number
will reach 25 billion by 2020.
The rise of the IoT has accelerated the ability to monitor,

measure, and manage customer experience and product use,
driving significant change in the way businesses interact with
customers, and transforming customer experience forever.
Want a simple example? The microchip you can place in your

dog can be used to track him and return him to you if he gets
lost. Talk about offering a positive customer experience; most
dog owners will tell you that their dogs are almost as impor-
tant to them as their children.
But the IoT can offer so much more. Consider the case of the
connected car. Having an Internet‐enabled car is one thing,
but the customer experience benefits of a connected car
far surpass being able to tap into the Internet for access to
cloud‐based music services or maps and navigation technol-
ogy. Using sensors installed in cars, drivers can now proac-
tively monitor almost everything in the car, from the engine,
to lights, to tire pressure — and then receive warnings and
otifications in the event the car needs parts or maintenance.

n
For the customer, the connected car can mean no more
getting stranded in the middle of nowhere dealing with car
troubles.
And, the connected car is equally important to the car

company, since it allows them to collect valuable user and
performance data from vehicles that can be funneled back
into the design of future vehicles to improve usability and
performance.
The IoT gives businesses a new opportunity to use c

ustomer
data to improve customer experience and proactively
improve their product/service.
The key value and challenge associated with the IoT is making
sure that the data promptly winds up in the right hands. That is,
all these devices are collecting data, but a business needs that
data routed to the appropriate person. It’s one thing that the
connected car notifies you when your engine needs servicing.
But technology designed to leverage the IoT expands the value
because it automatically routes the information to the correct
area within the dealership (service representative, mechanic,
and so on) to contact the customer — by phone, automated
email, or text message — to schedule an appointment.
Why Does it Matter?

Today’s consumer is intelligent and will shop where he can
get the best service, the best product, probably at the best
price — essentially, the best customer experience.
In today’s digital world, customer loyalty is difficult but not

impossible to achieve. Because customers have so much
information at their fingertips, they can compare you to your
competitors in seconds. Offering an outstanding customer
experience can differentiate you from your competition even
more than a lower price point.
Businesses must understand mobile consumer behaviors to

ensure that they’re positioned for success and can guarantee
that customers get the service they expect. Clearly, though,
the responsibility for delivering a satisfying customer experi-
ence has never been more complex. Businesses must support
customers using multiple channels of communication. In
addition, with digital devices increasing the speed with which
commerce is happening, customers have come to expect
instant responses. Today’s organization must adapt to pro-
vide a convenient, satisfying and consistent customer experi-
ence at all times.
And what happens when you don’t?
Well, mobile consumers have more than just access to the

information they want at the tips of their fingers and the abil-
ity to execute a transaction at their convenience. They also
have the ability to share that experience in real time with
their closest friends, who are your customers and prospects.
According to We Are Social (http://wearesocial.net),
nearly one in four people now has an active social media
account on his mobile device.
In other words, these customers can share their satisfaction

or dissatisfaction with countless people in the blink of eye.
A negative customer service story on social media can go viral

with the click of a mouse or a tap of the finger.
And, it’s becoming increasingly clear that customers are pow-

erful word‐of‐mouth marketers; a positive customer experi-
ence can result in 69 percent of customers recommending a
company to others. On the flip side, 79 percent of customers
will readily share any negative experience (Harris Interactive).
Customer experience has a multiplicative effect, both posi-

tively and negatively (see Figure 2‐2).
Figure 2-2: T he impact of customer experience.
There isn’t a company in the world that is immune to the

impact of delivering poor customer experience. With cus-
tomer advocacy being a crucial competitive differentiator, it’s
critical to understand your customer. Figure 2‐3 presents the
high priority customers place on the customer experience
and the high risk and high cost a business faces if it delivers a
poor customer experience.
Figure 2-3: A
poor customer experience is risky and costly.
Today’s customers want and expect:
✓✓Personalized and proactive experiences

✓✓Relevant and timely information
✓✓Quick response times
Chapter 3
Assessing the Current
Situation
In This Chapter
▶▶Identifying the people who interact with your customers
▶▶Examining the way you support your customers today
▶▶Evaluating the cost of maintaining the status quo
▶▶Looking ahead
I ’ve established that the evolving customer experience

is changing the way you need to do business. Research
shows that the consumer population uses multiple channels
when reaching out for customer service or making a pur-
chase. So how does this shift affect your bottom line? And,
are you in a position to address the needs of your customers?
This chapter gives you more information.
Identifying Customer Experience

Influencers
First, today’s consumer is trying to engage with you using
digital devices. They want to be able to use your website to
buy things and to search for answers. They want to be able to
interact with you via text, tweet, or email.
The percentage of your customer population that wants to

call and talk to you is shrinking.
Digital communication is fast‐paced, so, your customer

expects answers very quickly. How does the new speed of
doing business affect the customer experience you provide?
Your customers need to connect with the right person to

resolve their issue — and (big surprise here) they need to
connect quickly. So, even if you’ve dedicated employees to
handling interactions with customers, today’s customer expe-
rience dictates that other people in your organization — who
may not have had any direct affect in the past — are now
influencing the customer experience. Twenty percent of con-
tact center interactions require collaboration with general
business staff ‐‐ that puts 20 percent of great customer experi-
ence at risk. Check out Figure 3‐1 to see examples of customer
touch points within your business.
Figure 3-1: T wenty percent of customer interactions with a business

require collaboration with general business staff in your
organization.
To provide an outstanding customer experience, all these

touch points need to interact, both as groups and using
technology.
Examining the Current Setup

Today’s world of business is increasingly fast‐paced, competi-
tive, technology‐led, and global. Cultural, technological, and
physical elements are working together to drive a rapid pace
of change like never before.
Digital technology affects not only the customer experience

but also the employee experience you offer. See the sidebar,
“Digital technology and employees” for more information.
Chapter 3: Assessing the Current Situation 19
Mobile technology and employees

Digital technology has enhanced they want flexibility to work where,
more than your customer’s way of when, and how they want. If your
communicating with you. It has actu- business can provide the right infra-
ally widened your employee pool. structure to accommodate personal
Digital technology enables you to devices and employee choices, you
use remote workforces. could expand your resource pool so
that you have the absolute best peo-
Workers today want to bring their
ple providing your customers with an
own devices into the workplace and
outstanding customer experience.
Many customer experience strategies and solutions simply

don’t provide a seamless, predictable customer experience over
all channels of communications that customers want to use:
✓✓Many support only voice communication and don’t

address the need for multichannel communication with
your customers.
✓✓Many of these solutions connect to only a small percent-
age of your employees and don’t address the need to
put the right person in the right place at the right time.
Effectively, these solutions create silos within your orga-
nization and separate your employees from the business
intelligence they need to provide an outstanding cus-
tomer experience.
✓✓Your solution may not have the technology tools neces-
sary today, such as customer relationship management
(CRM), screen pops, customer profiling provided by
interactive voice response systems, and data retention
from one interaction to another, just to name a few.
Screen pops appear on your employee’s desktop and
display information such as caller ID and CRM informa-
tion for a call simultaneously sent to the employee’s
telephone.
✓✓Existing solutions may not have tools for monitoring calls
and coaching employees.
Even if you have procedures and technology in place to

handle customer interactions, you need to examine them to
determine if they will truly meet your needs today and in the
future. If you don’t have procedures in place, you need to
establish them to
✓✓Compete with the big guys

✓✓Differentiate your business, and
✓✓Improve sales
Understanding the Costs and

Complexity of the Status Quo
For many, not only will today’s technological and procedural
environment likely not meet their needs, but also it’s expen-
sive to maintain. If you look across your organization, you
may have multiple teams responsible for the customer expe-
rience, (eCommerce, order entry, product support, inside
sales, telesales, customer care, the help desk, and more).
Each team has specific areas of responsibility, potentially
in different departments using different solutions that were
handpicked by each team based on its specific requirements.
Each team has limited visibility into what the other teams are
doing or what technology they’re using. Generally speaking,
this approach has worked in the past as long as each team
met its objectives. But, this approach creates departmental
silos. And, deliberately or accidentally, silos don’t share the
business intelligence needed to serve customers properly. So,
from the very start, you can’t provide the quality of service
your customers expect — because your employees don’t have
the information they need to do their jobs.
Silos encourage the destruction of a productive company

culture.
Then, there’s the technology side of things to consider. Each

of these teams might be running its solution on a dedicated
infrastructure with its own hardware and software, and
administrative personnel. In all likelihood, each infrastructure
has been designed to ensure that it can scale to support the
required traffic volumes and employees and is available when
customers need it, even during peak periods. To build such an
infrastructure requires a significant hardware, software, and
administrative investment, including components such as
✓✓Development environments, often built at 25 percent of
production capacity to ensure the infrastructure works
the way it needs to work
✓✓Test environments, often built at 50 percent of produc-
tion capacity to ensure the infrastructure will be able to
handle the load
✓✓Production environments, built to support the maximum
possible traffic load, regardless of how often that volume
is hit
Creating all these separate infrastructures for multiple teams

in a single organization requires servers . . . a lot of servers.
And servers aren’t cheap.
This sprawling setup has led many companies to explore

using the Cloud to support the customer experience. Some
(a certain tech giant) are even considering turning to the
last place on earth where we currently aren’t storing data —
under the sea.
Your IT department is probably charged with the responsibil-

ity to maintain all of these disparate systems and associated
hardware and software, and, if you talk to them, you’ll find
that they spend their lives fighting fires instead of providing
your organization with the support it needs to effectively do
business. Your organization falls further and further behind
the goal of providing an excellent customer experience.
And, so, your customer suffers — and probably looks for a

new vendor.
Because today’s customers aren’t static — they’re constantly

changing and evolving as they conquer new ways to take
advantage of digital technology — you need to be relentless
in capturing relevant customer information. You need to do
more than gather intelligence at the start of an interaction;
you need to carry the intelligence throughout the entire life-
cycle of the interaction and customer history. With the right
approach and technology, you’ll be able to spot untapped
opportunities to increase revenue per customer. If you ensure
that content is relevant, you’ll be able reduce customer churn
and build loyalty. Figure 3‐2 identifies the top three customer
frustrations in the digital age.
Figure 3-2: T he top three customer frustrations in the digital age and their
result.
According to Forrester, when you handle a customer by tele-

phone, the call costs you between $6 and $12. But, you can
provide web self‐service for less than 10 cents. The bottom
line is that 55 percent of customers would pay extra to guar-
antee better service, according to Defaqto.
So, Where Do You Go

From Here?
Economic downturns and an evolving marketplace have made
reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency increas-
ingly crucial. And don’t forget about remaining compliant with
industry regulations and policies. Your challenge lies in offer-
ing a flexible, intimate customer experience without compro-
mising your bottom line.
Your traditional brick and mortar experience still exists,

but you also need to support new ways of customer com-
munication. If your company hasn’t yet formalized its way of
interacting with customers, you need to address this need.
And, if your company has a formalized approach for handling
customer interactions, current tactics and technology aren’t
likely to sufficiently meet evolving requirements.
But before you start focusing on new tactics and technology,

make sure that you’re being strategic and not tactical. Identify
your customer and evaluate your customers’ communication
needs.
Then, build your strategy around those needs so that you can
improve your customers’ experiences. Figure 3‐3 identifies
four best practices you should strive to follow while building
your customer experience strategy. These best practices help
you ensure that your customer experience strategy is closely
aligned with the ways your customers are buying.
Figure 3-3: F our best practices for building a customer experience strategy.
Look across your organization and determine all the possible

points of engagement. Anticipate how customers expect to
engage: via email, web chat, text, voice, video, social media,
self‐service, or other touch points. Then develop a strategy
that ensures you have the right person in the right place at
the right time to support customer requests as quickly as
possible — before a consumer has the chance to deflect, take
their business elsewhere, and share their negative experience.
Remember the following key points:
✓✓Customers expect a flexible experience with digital

media. Your business needs to be ready to respond on all
channels at all times.
✓✓Negative experiences can go viral! Workflows must be
defined to ensure customers are connected to the right
people in your organization with the right skills for the
interaction, and these people must have the right tools to
provide informed responses.
✓✓Providing a convenient, digital experience improves
customer loyalty and paints a positive picture for
word‐of‐mouth marketing.
Chapter 4
Understanding the Value
in Getting it Right
In This Chapter
▶▶Knowing your customers and balancing their needs
▶▶Understanding that excellent customer experiences generate revenue
▶▶Using the right tools to provide an outstanding customer experience
increases the productivity of your employees
▶▶Taking advantage of the Internet of Things to increase profits
O ffering an outstanding customer experience can only

help you. When your business exceeds the expectations
of your customers, you’ll find that you are retaining custom-
ers, turning them into loyal and lifetime customers, and
adding new customers.
Don’t forget that today’s consumers carry with them tech-

nologies (the Internet, social media, email, text messaging,
and more) that they can use to contact your organization —
or your competition — in seconds. You need to be able to
respond in seconds.
With the ability to share experiences at their fingertips, your

customers’ marketing endeavors can make or break your busi-
ness. If you embrace the concept of offering an outstanding
customer experience in the age of digital devices, you stand
to gain everything and lose nothing.
Balancing Customer Needs

In Chapter 2, I identify today’s customer pool and its buying
habits. Within the next ten years, Generation Y‐ers (the
Millennials) and Generation Z‐ers will represent the majority
of the workforce and the buying population. These folks were
the first to grow up with computers in their homes, and they
are by far the most tech‐savvy generations yet.
These generations are success‐driven, goal‐oriented, deter-

mined, confident, and highly technology‐dependent. These
qualities are all exciting, but they also make these generations
highly demanding as consumers. They expect quality service,
they expect it now, and they like things short and sweet
because they’re excellent at multitasking. And, they aren’t as
loyal to brands as customers once were.
These characteristics have led to a fundamental shift in the

way enterprises must do business — rather than nurturing
long‐term brand loyalty, businesses need to be able to respond
to the desire for instant gratification.
So, how can businesses better serve Millennials and

Generation Z‐ers? Here are some ways:
✓✓Provide robust information. These generations aren’t

afraid to do their research, and they know where to find
the answers they need. As a result, information needs to
be readily available to them, easy to find, and highly edu-
cational or entertaining.
✓✓Be available. These generations are online day and night,
and in this 24/7 world, they expect businesses to be the
same. They want to be able to access your business
when they want to — and through the channel of their
choosing.
✓✓Be social. These generations aren’t afraid to share the
things they like (or dislike). They live on social media
and want to be able to reach you through Facebook,
Twitter, Yelp, LinkedIn, and other social platforms. Be
present and be part of their conversations.
Even though Millennials and Generation Z‐ers make up a large

percentage of the buying populations, the other generations
Chapter 4: Understanding the Value in Getting it Right 27
are still present and still buying. At this point in time, you
can’t afford to ignore any segment of the buying population.
So, in addition to the buying and communication channels
that Millennials use, you also need to support the channels
preferred by the other generations. Figure 4‐1 shows these
different channels.
Figure 4-1: T he changing customer experience channels.
Tracing changing customer

experience channels
The single channel approach cor- if the customer switches from email
responds most closely with the cus- to text during an interaction, that
tomer experience before the rise of customer expects your company to
digital technology, where the cus- pick up the thread in text where it left
tomer communicated at a brick and off in email.
mortar store. With the integration of
The omni‐channel experience refers
digital technology into the customer
to the multichannel approach that
experience, customers interact using
aims to provide customers with a
multiple electronic media, including
seamless experience regardless
voice, the Internet, emails, text, and
of the device (desktop computer,
the brick and mortar store, and they
smartphone, or tablet) and chan-
expect to be able to pivot between
nel (physical or electronic) they opt
channels while maintaining the con-
to use.
text of their interaction. For example,
It’s safe to say that digital channels are preferred by the

majority of customers today. The only exception applies to
most people in post‐war era and Baby Boomer generations,
who prefer voice communication. But it’s equally possible
that these folks may have children and grandchildren han-
dling their customer interactions on their behalf — children
and grandchildren who prefer digital channels.
While most businesses have voice communications under

control, voice communications alone, as a method of cus-
tomer interaction, is no longer adequate.
You can create an excellent customer experience if you
✓✓Profile your customers to understand what drives

them, the communications methods they use, and
their schedules.
✓✓Offer service across every possible communication chan-
nel and effectively manage the channels your customers
prefer.
✓✓Provide anytime, anywhere, any device, any browser
services that offer seamless interactions 24 hours a day,
7 days a week, 365 days a year from anywhere in the
world (see Figure 4‐2).
✓✓Deliver personalized service throughout the customer
journey, learning and collecting new customer informa-
tion from each interaction.
Figure 4-2: Provide service anytime using multiple communication channels

for a truly customer-centric approach.
✓✓Be transparent and flexible, letting customers know
which media will result in the fastest responses and
provide alternatives to waiting in queue.
Excellent Customer Experiences

Generate Revenue
Managing the customer experience has traditionally been
treated as a cost center responsibility. The company’s profit
margins financed the function, which might have only indi-
rectly contributed to profits.
However, as the customer experience has evolved and

matured, communications with customers are more respon-
sible for generating revenue than ever before. For example, a
customer support team that responds to customers doesn’t
directly drive company profits. But if that team delivers poor
customer service experiences, the resulting negative social
media and bad press could lead to a significant decline in sales.
To make a customer support team a revenue generator as

opposed to a cost center, businesses must ensure their opera-
tions are cost effective. Queues should be well‐occupied,
the right number of people should be fielding inquiries with
the proper information at their fingertips, and the inquiries
should be handled efficiently.
Businesses also need to verify the performance of their tech-

nology and the people answering the inquiries. With the right
tools, businesses can do just that:
✓✓Tools that offer real‐time alarms inform supervisors of

performance issues and inefficiencies so they can act
immediately to maintain service levels and control costs.
✓✓Tools that provide accurate forecasting, scheduling, and
reporting ensure resources are effectively deployed at
all times.
With the right reporting metrics, management can easily com-

pare key performance indicators (KPIs) like average handle
time, service level, or cost per interaction. Then, management
can analyze these KPIs in the context of new sales, customer
retention, and customer satisfaction.
Technology purchases are always easier to validate and

approve if they can drive quantifiable results. With a digital
customer experience platform, you can
✓✓Handle more interactions with fewer people

✓✓Stimulate sales growth and drive customer satisfaction
with outbound email and text messaging
✓✓Convert leads and increase selling opportunities by being
available at each touch‐point of the customer journey
✓✓Automate customer service and support with self‐service
and outbound messaging responses for all media types
✓✓Profit by your investment in social media
The people in your organization who interact with your cus-

tomers are more responsible for generating revenue than ever
before. Give them the tools to support their efforts and your
business will benefit and grow.
Maximizing Productivity
Interaction with customers has traditionally focused on han-
dling incoming communication. And historically, technologi-
cal solutions were designed to channel, monitor, and improve
the performance of the people who answered telephones as
they dealt with increasing numbers of inbound phone calls.
But, with the growth of digital communication, the need to
expand technological solutions has increased. The technology
now needs to manage inbound communication to include text,
email, Web, and social media interactions, and more.
In addition, the need to reach out to customers — that is, sup-

port outbound traffic — has risen. Previously, inbound and
outbound customer support employees served two unique
customer bases. Those who managed incoming communica-
tion handled incoming sales and support inquiries. And, those
who handled outbound communication were typically limited
to collections and telemarketing. However, as the technology
solutions have become more robust and feature‐rich, busi-
nesses have seen the value of blending the roles.
By blending the roles, customer support employees can both
make and receive calls as well as digital communications.
Today’s technology optimizes productivity by ensuring that
employees don’t sit idle between customer interactions.
Increasingly, inbound agents notify customers of changes
to their accounts, payments due, or appointment remind-
ers. And, because the technology supports it, customers
can choose to receive these notifications by voice, text, or
email messages. Your company’s inbound call volume goes
down, your customers are more satisfied, and your business’s
operating costs are lower.
Let the Internet of Things

Improve Your Profits
“How can the Internet of Things improve my profits?” you
ask. By using the right technology, customer‐centric organiza-
tions can look at behavioral patterns and market trends. The
right strategy and approach can ensure that you completely
understand your customer. With this understanding, you
can anticipate your customer’s needs, proactively (instead
of reactively) engage with them, and continually provide an
outstanding customer experience.
The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) has fast‐tracked the way
businesses interact with customers. How? By increasing your
business’s ability to monitor, measure, and manage the cus-
tomer experience and the way customers use your products.
Getting the information you need and putting it in the proper
hands to satisfy today’s customers will help you keep existing
customers and gain new ones, and your profits will rise.
The Bottom Line . . .

Your business can only benefit by providing excellent cus-
tomer experiences at every touchpoint. According to Harvard
Business Review, the top performers in customer experience
ratings achieve 2.4 times the revenue of the businesses lag-
ging behind in maximizing the customer experience.
Chapter 5
Providing the Optimal
Customer Experience
In This Chapter
▶▶Understanding the way to approach improving customer experiences
▶▶Identifying best practices to implement improved customer
experiences
▶▶Exploring where to turn for help
T he people in your organization who interact with your

customers become, either formally or informally, a stra-
tegic part of your business. Often, they become the brand
face to your customers. They also can become either a major
source of revenue generation or a significant cost center to
be managed, depending on how well they do their jobs. These
people can help you differentiate your business in a competi-
tive marketplace by providing an outstanding customer
experience every time they interact with your customers.
Before you can provide the optimal customer experience, you

need to think beyond your support teams and really examine
who in your organization impacts your customer experience.
Today’s customers want to be self‐sufficient. They aren’t

alone in this desire. Businesses also want to be as self‐
sufficient as possible in getting value from the people who
directly engage with their customers. But you can’t always
achieve this self‐sufficiency without help.
The Big Picture

Businesses need to set strategic goals that enable them to
continuously offer excellent customer service and experience.
Reaching these strategic objectives can demand a great deal
of business focus and investment, but the payoff will make the
effort worthwhile.
The process is continuous; you don’t wake up one day

and say, “We’re here! We’re offering outstanding customer
experiences.” Instead, you need to be able to monitor the
experience you’re offering to make sure it continues to be
outstanding, and to look for ways to make it even better.
You can implement technology solutions, but using the tech-

nology can still be a challenge. Digital and outbound interac-
tions are ramping up, and then there are cloud considerations
and regulations issues to address.
How do organizations manage their customer interactions?

They use a range of specialized technology and management
activities that focus on customer communications, business
processes, resourcing, and more. But, while these activities
can provide ultimately useful information, they are somewhat
premature. You need to establish a clear set of objectives and
a corresponding strategy to meet your goals.
Best Practices for Getting

It Right
Before you start doing anything or investing any money, you
need to formulate a strategy that will get you where you need
to go. Your strategy should include
✓✓Understanding the customer journey and offering, and

prioritizing channels accordingly
✓✓Making anywhere, anytime, any‐device interactions easy
for your customers
✓✓Providing the customer with a seamless, consistent experi-
ence across all channels and all touchpoints in the business
✓✓Leveraging your existing infrastructure to create revenue‐
generating, differentiated customer experiences
Chapter 5: Providing the Optimal Customer Experience 35
A good strategy should help you translate business goals into
technology solutions. It should
✓✓Identify existing business processes and examine how

your business wants to evolve or transform its processes
to improve customer experience, reduce costs, measure
outcomes, and more
✓✓Include, if necessary, consulting expertise to align stake-
holders to agree on their business roadmap before con-
sidering the technology
✓✓Develop firm business requirements to begin the solution
design; often, developing requirements needs deep archi-
tectural expertise in the technology environment and
surrounding business applications
✓✓Apply new solutions as well as upgrades, migrations, and
expansions of existing solutions
✓✓Help a business learn the state of its technology
Performing a health check

Your strategy should include a health check from a reputable
vendor that reviews your organizational structure (including
all customer touchpoints), systems, and processes in depth
and presents you with concrete, actionable recommendations
on how to optimize your operations based on your unique
business goals.
The health check should analyze the ways customers interact

with you and the way work should flow. The health check also
should help you determine whether your organization needs
training on the processes and tools it uses to support the
customer experience and provide you with a technology audit
to help you gauge where you are today and identify strengths
and weaknesses.
Analyzing customer
interaction flow
This flow analysis should determine the types of calls and
digital communications your business receives and develop
flow paths that provide advanced routing functionality for
your customers. That way, your customers can access the

right information quickly and easily.
More often than not, customers will abandon transactions if

their questions or concerns aren’t addressed quickly.
You should receive a report that contains recommendations for

changes that affect communications and application infrastruc-
ture. The report should also include suggestions for additional
hardware and software that can help automate your business
operations and enable you to optimize the level of service you
provide to customers. And, most importantly, the report should
contain suggestions for changes to business processes sup-
ported by technology to achieve better performance outcomes.
Analyzing work flow

When you’ve identified customer interaction flows, you need
to determine how communications should be handled after
they’ve been processed and routed. During the work flow
analysis, you should audit your systems to make sure that you
completely understand them.
Training
As part of your strategy, clarify business processes and opera-
tions and gauge your employees’ familiarity with the technolo-
gies you use. Then, assess the efficiency enhancements you
may gain by providing training on technology and on cus-
tomer service and best practices.
Examining existing technology

By taking an inventory of your organization’s technology and
that technology’s performance, you can determine whether
your business is moving in the direction you want to go to
provide outstanding customer experiences. After you evaluate
your existing infrastructure, work with a reputable vendor that
can provide a wide breadth of capabilities and services to sup-
port you at every step of your customer experience strategy.
Technology inventory information provides a benchmark of

where your business is now, so you can identify strengths and
weaknesses in your technology investment.
Considering deployment options
To establish your customer-centric technology strategy, you
can choose to invest in additional on‐site infrastructure or
shift to cloud‐based solutions — and the choice you make
depends on many factors. For example, you might choose to
invest in your own infrastructure if your organization is happy
with its communication system and just needs to expand or
invest in more advanced functionality, such as supporting
digital communications. You might also choose to invest in
your own infrastructure if your business operates in heavily
regulated or scrutinized industries, such as the financial or
healthcare industries, and is limited or restricted in how it
manages, stores, and protects customer data.
Alternatively, if you determine that you have the option, you

can establish an integrated digital framework that offers a
unified customer experience using a cloud solution. A cloud
solution can offer a unified customer experience more quickly
than investing in your own infrastructure. And, the entire cus-
tomer service process can be scaled up or down as required,
based on the number and type of communications channels
needed and the expected demand for service at any given time.
If you’re unsure which deployment model makes the most

sense for your customer experience, turn to a reputable
vendor with experience in both premises‐ and cloud‐based
deployments for help.
How Mitel Can Help

As you can imagine, during this process, you may find that
you need some help both with establishing your strategy and
with implementing it. Mitel can help you embrace the modern
consumer, connect your enterprise, and adopt an agile busi-
ness model, whether it’s on premises, in the cloud, or using a
hybrid combination.
Mitel’s method for achieving outstanding customer experi-

ences aims to streamline business processes, increase pro-
ductivity, and improve first‐contact resolution. This focus on
customer experience improvement has been proven to yield a
higher return on technology investment.
As shown in Figure 5‐1, Mitel’s portfolio of products and

services is designed to support you at every stage of your
customer experience strategy.
Figure 5-1: Mitel’s portfolio supports your customer experience strategy

end to end.
Mitel has helped hundreds of customers and partners to

translate their customer needs and technology requirements
into game‐changing customer experience solutions designed
to grow as their business dictates. This section presents some
case studies that use Mitel’s practice methodology for repeat-
able and predictable results.
Case study: Red Funnel Ferries

Red Funnel Ferries is an integrated transport and travel busi-
ness that runs ferries from Southampton to the Isle of Wight.
Red Funnel Ferries is the oldest ferry service to the Isle of
Wight and has been in operation since 1861.
From a communication perspective, Red Funnel Ferries was

looking to enhance its customers’ experience. Customers
had started using new channels such as social media to inter-
act with Red Funnel Ferries. It became vitally important to
provide a customer‐centric network where customers could
communicate freely and easily with Red Funnel Ferries with
questions on all kinds of subjects, including delays, cancel-
lations, timetable inquiries, and even issues on board that
could arise. Red Funnel needed to recognize and evaluate
these contacts in real time.
Previously, Red Funnel Ferris had a call center that was very
reactive instead of proactive and offered voice‐only com-
munications with customers. Red Funnel Ferries wanted to
increase the productivity of its team and improve the reaction
time for its staff to deal with customer communications by
providing the capability to handle omni‐channel communica-
tions that included emails and social media, as well as voice
communication.
In conjunction with Red Funnel’s communications partner,

Charterhouse Voice & Data, Mitel helped modernize the cus-
tomer experience by connecting digital and mobile consum-
ers with Red Funnel Ferries. Red Funnel Ferries now uses
skills‐based routing to ensure that its customers receive the
best possible customer service. Its system ensures that a
fully capable and qualified agent, trained to handle inquiries,
responds to all queries. Red Funnel also uses social media
monitoring to evaluate areas that would improve and enhance
customers’ experiences.
The results? Red Funnel has seen a marked improvement in

terms of customer satisfaction and feedback as a result of
that initiative. The company has decreased its customer com-
plaints by 16 percent, but more importantly, it has increased
its customer compliments by 116 percent year on year. And,
Red Funnel won “Customer Experience Team of the Year
2015” and “Social Customer Service Team of the Year 2015”
from the London & South East Contact Centre Forum Awards.
Case study: Centrinex

Founded in 2005 in Lenexa, Kansas, Centrinex is a national
leader in contact center management and predominantly
serves lines of business such as federal government, financial
services, seminar groups, and inbound customer service.
In the past ten years, Centrinex has grown from a startup with
ten employees to a powerhouse with 800 agents and three call
center facilities. But its tremendous growth is no product of
luck; Centrinex credits its success to performance measure-
ment, recruiting, and training top talent and a commitment
to using advanced technology. Ever‐conscious of shifts in the

market and new ways customers wish to communicate with
its clients, Centrinex recognized that introducing digital com-
munications would not only improve customer satisfaction
but also increase productivity by enabling agents to handle
multiple customer interactions at once and with a quicker
resolution time.
“The use of mobile and multimedia communications really

lets us give consumers the choice of how, where, and when
they want to connect with our company. If someone is out
of the office or away from home, a cell phone call might be
the best contact method, but, web chat might be preferred
by someone sitting at his computer. With Mitel’s solutions,
my agents can now manage a phone call, two email conversa-
tions, and a web chat all simultaneously and while delivering
a superior customer experience for each,” said Bart Miller,
Centrinex Founder and CEO.
Miller continued, “Each time we grew, each time we added

more agents, each time we added more phone lines, each
time we added more volume to the system, Mitel had a solu-
tion for us. They were able to provide us with everything we
needed to move to that next level. It’s an easy decision for
me now to want to grow to 1,000 people, 2,000 agents, 4,000
agents . . . [we know our] Mitel solution will be able to grow
with us.”
So, how can Mitel help you? See Figure 5‐2.
Embrace the Connect the Enhance Business

Modern Consumer Enterprise Agility
• Simplify customer • Connect the entire • Optimize across
experience workforce departments, users, and
• Optimize for mobile • Connect your company media
consumers: anywhere, data to personalize • Flexible deployment
anyway, any time service options: on premises,
• Integrate social • Blend customer cloud, or hybrid
communications engagements • On-site expertise: from
• Maximize self-service • Learn from industry best design to consulting to
• Proactively engage practices fully managed service
Figure 5-2: T he ways Mitel can help you.
Chapter 6
Ten Customer Experience
Facts to Remember
In This Chapter
▶▶Summarizing the evolution of the customer experience
▶▶Looking at important industry statistics
T he customer experience is changing, and the use of digital

services is rising astronomically. As a result of this chang-
ing experience, it has become imperative for businesses to
be in a position to offer customers an outstanding customer
experience or risk losing their businesses.
To offer your customers the best experience, keep these

points in mind:
✓✓Synthetix points out that 90 percent of today’s consum-

ers will always check a website before contacting a
company.
✓✓The Harris Poll found that 64 percent of consumers
prefer texting over voice as a customer service channel.
✓✓By 2020, 85 percent of customers will manage their rela-
tionships with businesses without interacting with a
person, according to Gartner.
✓✓Thirty‐six percent of consumers utilize one to two chan-
nels when seeking customer care, and 64 percent of con-
sumers utilize three or more channels, reports Ovum.
✓✓Convergys asserts that the number of consumers prefer-
ring automated self‐service has doubled to 55 percent in
the last five years.
✓✓45 percent of United States consumers will abandon an

online transaction if their questions or concerns aren’t
addressed quickly, according to Forrester.
✓✓84 percent of customers are frustrated when a represen-
tative doesn’t have immediate access to account informa-
tion, a Mobius poll reported.
✓✓The increasing use of social media on digital devices
gives customers the means to share their experiences,
making them either your strongest allies or your stron-
gest enemies. Essentially, today’s customer experience
can make or break your business.
✓✓Defaqto reports that more than half of today’s customers
would pay extra to guarantee better service.
✓✓And, last, but certainly not least, Harvard Business
Review research reports that businesses that are pro-
viding an outstanding customer experience are finding
that customers who have had the best past experiences
spend 140 percent more compared to those who have
had the poorest past experience.
Ten Customer Experience Facts to Remember
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Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

Mitel Special Edition

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE

Chapter 1: Recognizing the Evolving

Chapter 2: Examining Today’s Customer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chapter 3: Assessing the Current Situation . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 4: Understanding the Value

Chapter 5: Providing the Optimal Customer

Chapter 6: Ten Customer Experience

The way people communicate with each other has evolved,

To survive and profit, today’s businesses need to focus on

Are you up to the challenge?

About This Book

This book is aimed at decision makers and influencers who

Use the information in this book to help you understand

Icons Used in This Book

Think of these icons as the fodder of advice columns. They

Danger, Will Robinson, danger! Well, okay, the information

Beyond the Book

W ith the advent of the digital communication age, cus-

Taking a Walk Down

From the brick and

The buying experience was completely different 30 years ago.

If a customer wanted to make a savings account deposit or

If a customer needed to deposit one or more checks to his

The customer then went to the bank, where he waited in line

Customers used their checking accounts when they spent

To obtain cash, customers wrote checks to themselves, went

Customers paid phone, electric, water, and other bills by writ-

Vendors who received checks from customers as payment

Before the digital age, your customer’s experience involved a

My, how things have changed.

. . . into the digital age

Today, customers handle financial transactions totally dif-

Customers can still write checks today to pay for goods or

To pay bills from the electric company or the gas company,

For the most part, banking has become self‐service. When

Customers can also make deposits at ATMs, but, why bother

Customers can check the balances of all bank accounts by

Mobile Commerce is Expanding

Further, today’s consumer choices have broadened; they

Today, many of us are confident that these issues have been

That kind of demand from customers puts today’s businesses

And, because customers are no longer limited to making pur-

To compete and grow your revenue, you’ve always had to

B ecause customers’ interactions with businesses have

Although you’ve always needed to know who your customers

Who Is Today’s Customer?

Demographically, the various generations of people have been

✓✓The Post‐World War II generation

A major segment of the buying population comes from

The rest of the buying population comes from Generation Y

Some demographers divide the Baby Boomer era into two

How, Where, and Why

Generation Y and Generation Z have grown up with technol-

Generations Y and Z tend to be mobile in their use of technol-

The online buying population is huge.

Figure 2-1: Today’s consumers are comfortable serving themselves.

otifications in the event the car needs parts or maintenance.

Figure 2-2: T he impact of customer experience.

Figure 3-1: T wenty percent of customer interactions with a business

Figure 4-1: T he changing customer experience channels.