It’s no secret that most businesses are heavily investing their time, money and energy into CX.
A recent Walker study stated that by the end of 2020, customer experience will have overtaken price and product as the key differentiator for brands.
But organisations pursuing market-leading CX need to ensure they keep compliance front-and-centre – because the hefty fines, reputational damage, and other repercussions vastly outweigh the short-lived convenience of overlooking it.
CX for profit, compliance for survival
There is a fundamental difference between compliance and CX in how they relate to one another.
Compliance is a foundational pillar of any customer experience strategy. If your CX isn’t designed and created on the strong foundations of compliance, the whole structure will crumble.
But while CX is vital to success – and will only continue to be a key indicator of performance as time goes on – the same principle does not apply vice versa.
Read on to learn why compliance can make or break your CX strategy.
The age of the hyper-aware customer
As more of life’s standard procedures have become digital, public consciousness of data security is at an all-time high.
Add in the slew of panicked retailers that flooded customer inboxes in the run up to 2018’s GDPR rollout, and the number of mainstream exposés and documentaries on how certain companies use customer data, and you have yourself a hyper aware audience.
The average customer now has both a solid knowledge of the granular level at which their behavioural data can be analysed, and the fact that many businesses overlook the rules when it comes to treating their private information with the care it deserves.
Public perceptions of compliance
This progression of public consciousness with regards to their rights, information privacy, and compliance as a whole means that the average consumer knows what good compliance looks and feels like.
It has also led to a shift in perspective.
Those fill-in forms, consent boxes and ‘routine questions’ asked by customer service agents are becoming less of a nuisance, and more a necessary display of trustworthiness.
According to Cisco, 43% of consumers don’t believe they can adequately protect their personal data today, while 84% want more control over how their data is used.
Having a clear and transparent process with regards to handling data presents an opportunity to show that you are not only committed to delivering a high calibre of service, but also that you are keeping the safety and security of your customers close to heart throughout their entire experience with you.
It’s 2020: CX is more than just convenience
Convenience is of course still important to customers, and there is a delicate balance between strong compliance and a seamless customer journey.
But prioritising convenience above everything else is a short-sighted move that can place businesses at great risk of regulatory breaches.
CX is about giving every customer the time of day. Making them feel cared for, and not treating them poorly. In today’s world that means showing them that you are doing things by the book when it comes to handling their enquiries, and their data.
Convenience matters, but customers shouldn’t ever feel like you’re dealing with them in an offhand or hurried manner.
Compliance builds customer trust
Salesforce recently revealed that 84% of consumers show greater loyalty to companies with strong security controls.
Now more than ever, having exceptional compliance measures is something you can position as a key business sell.
After all, who doesn’t want to be sure that they’re dealing with someone reliable?
Customers feel good knowing that their personal information is being dealt with seriously, and that a business they are buying from pays close attention to the right regulations.
Winning long-term customer loyalty through CX is all about providing a smooth, effective and constantly improving experience. You can’t have that without compliance.
Noncompliance fines will erase your budget
Boosting contact centre performance requires a baseline of investment. You need to put money into the right areas if you want to have a level of customer experience that renders you a centre of profit, rather than a centre of cost.
If becoming a profit centre and having a market-leading customer journey is an objective of yours (and we’d be very surprised if it wasn’t), then you should do everything in your power to avoid the devastating financial impact of noncompliance.
The financial penalties incurred – even for something like mishandling a single customer phone number – can easily reach a six-figure sum.
That means less budget to make your business better, which means less budget to invest in your customers.
Money lost out to compliance is money you can’t invest in your customer experience.
Tools for compliance are also tools for performance
Many of the tools and technologies available to today’s contact centres are designed to capture information, before storing and managing these reams of data in a centralised, easily accessible and fully auditable format.
This has inherent carryover to your ability to uphold a strong culture of compliance.
The pursuit of a unified single customer view will create the operational transparency needed for robust organisational compliance.
The capabilities unlocked by speech analytics for example, also present a significant benefit when it comes to compliance.
Automatically monitoring, analysing and scoring every point of interaction, flagging errors with regards to data omission, providing easy access to audit trails – these features combined provide a level of clarity that you won’t get from periodical compliance checks.
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