Friction-free

Things are really hard right now for both organizations who are trying to service their customers and for customers who are trying to get what they need. It’s not just the volume of inquiries that’s the issue, it’s the disjointed processes that support these interactions. Even in the best of times, you want your customer interactions to be smooth, seamless, and frictionless. But today, minimizing friction has never been more important.

Frictionless interactions

In my last post, I talked about how companies should be easy to engage, one of the four pillars of being an as-a-Service company and a new way of doing business that puts the customer at the epicenter of everything you do. The other pillars are being client-centric, accountable for your customer experiences end to end, and offering frictionless interactions (the topic of this post), not just for your customers but for your employees as well.

Industry transformation

Think about how people used to hail a cab. If you’re under 30, you might not remember a time when you had to stand on the side of the road, stick your arm out, and wait for a cabbie to pull over. If you called one in advance, you couldn’t be sure when the driver would show up, or even if they would, especially if it was raining. And if you didn’t have enough cash to pay the fare, you could be left on the side of the road.

From the drivers’ perspective, they didn’t know who they were picking up, or if that person would be able to pay them. And if they were responding to a dispatched call, there was no guarantee that passenger wouldn’t hop in another cab before they got there. Because passengers were anonymous, there was no accountability, and the drivers often paid the price.

That’s how Uber was able to transform the industry. They found friction – and took it out. Now passengers know when they will get picked up, where, by whom, and how much it will cost. And drivers know who they are picking up, that they will get paid for their services, and that their passenger will be there waiting for them. By making the process more transparent with access to real-time data – and by eliminating all the painful steps involved in getting a cab - Uber made the entire experience frictionless.

But not all customer experiences are so easy. And because customers can choose who they do business with, the companies who offer the best customer experiences almost always win.

Types of friction

Friction can be external – roadblocks that impede the customer experience – or internal – processes that makes an employee’s job harder when trying to service customers.

For customers, I’m talking about long wait times (whether in person, online, or on the phone), having to repeat or reenter information over and over again, getting passed around from agent to agent, getting disconnected, not getting an issue resolved, and other frustrations.

That’s external (or customer) friction.

Similarly, employees shouldn’t have to rely on dozens of different applications or toggle between hundreds of screens every day to do their job. They shouldn’t have to manually enter customer information that should automatically pop up. And they shouldn’t have to rely on stale, outdated data that’s no longer relevant.

That’s internal (or employee) friction.

Companies today are under tremendous pressure to resolve customer issues quickly, and employees need access to real-time customer information, as well as historical data and transactional data, so they can best serve their customers.

Creating frictionless experiences

Fragmented information systems can impede the ability to access customer data across multiple touchpoints – online, in person, over the phone, etc. But customers don’t operate in just one channel – they’re omnichannel – they might search your website, then IM you, then give you a call. To deliver a frictionless experience, organizations need a center-out business architecture that manages real-time decisions and automation for the customer journey – regardless of channel. This lets companies not only be appropriately reactive but proactive with personalized experiences. It also allows them to insulate customers and users from the complexity of legacy systems and silos.

You can do this by redesigning processes to mirror the customer journey – or “microjourney,” the elements of a larger process that are tied to specific outcomes, like applying for and getting a small business loan or deferring a payment because of a financial hardship. By using case management to capture the redesigned microjourney, you can streamline the process to make it frictionless for the customer and users. Instead of being restricted by siloed, product-centric systems, problems can get resolved more quickly. According to an Aberdeen study, companies that are omnichannel have an 83% customer retention rating versus 53% for those who don’t. By empowering employees with the automation tools they need to get things done for their customers, customer service reps (CSRs) have higher job satisfaction and lower turnover.

Reducing internal and external friction

Insurance company Great American set out to make their customer experience frictionless, both internally and externally. Today CSRs work with one system instead of 15, which has freed them up to focus on the human side of customer service. And for customers, the withdraw process now takes seven minutes instead twenty-four. That’s frictionless.

Companies can’t have a customer-friendly experience that’s hard for employees to execute, and they can’t have a system that’s easy for employees but tests the patience of consumers. Reducing friction on both sides saves time, cuts costs, and creates happy employees and happy customers. That’s a win-win for all. And these days we could all use one.