All I Want for Christmas Is Better Customer Interactions

December 18, 2024

• A Journey-Centric Strategy: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
  • Day 1: Browse and search
  • Day 2: Create and add products to a wish list
  • Day 3: Receive targeted offers
  • Day 4: Pick up purchased products
  • Day 5: Customer feedback survey
  • Day 6: Report suspicious account activity
  • Day 7: Purchase devices, bundles and offers
  • Day 8: Exceed overdraft limit notification
  • Day 9: Proactive service outage notification
  • Day 10: Schedule and manage appointments
  • Day 11: Replace or return products
  • Day 12: Ask about bills, services or charges
• CSG Xponent Orchestrates These 12 Journeys-And Many More
• Want to add CSG Xponent to your company's wish list? 

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Also the most stressful. There's pressure to find the perfect gifts. Crowded stores and parking lots. Mounting bills and credit card debt. Weather-related travel delays. Cold and flu season. This is all to say, shoppers are constantly contending with inconveniences that can make the holiday season less joyful. Their interaction with a brand shouldn't add to them.

When it's a hassle to deal with a retail store, bank, telecommunications provider or medical clinic, already stressed-out customers are quick to take their business elsewhere. Brands can ease customers' nerves by guiding interactions to quickly and easily meet their needs. Journey orchestration (JO) is the magic that makes it happen during the year-end consumer chaos.

A Journey-Centric Strategy: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Across industries, from retail to healthcare, there are essential interactions that brands need to make timely and effective if they want to stay on their customers' "nice list." These are often the high-impact customer journeys that involve critical communications like year-end statements or renewal notices, and they can be personalized and delivered in the right moment.

Need examples of how a journey-centric approach can keep these interactions easy? Like the "12 Days of Christmas," here are 12 journeys you can optimize for your customers by using intelligent orchestration.

Day 1: Browse and search

Holiday shoppers turn to online retailers in their search for the perfect gift. While some buyers hunt for a specific product, others prefer to browse different websites before settling on a purchase. After detecting research behavior and tracking purchase intent, the right customer engagement platform can guide customers by sending targeted offers and triggering relevant marketing campaign promotions for the item that they plan to put under the tree.

Day 2: Create and add products to a wish list

How many times have you found an online item you love, added it to a wish list and then forgotten all about it the next day? Seasonal shoppers are no different. That's where journey orchestration drives conversion by inviting customers to revisit their saved product collection, nudging them to complete the purchase after a certain amount of time has passed. The simple reminder can be enough to reduce cart abandonment and prompt a sale.

Day 3: Receive targeted offers

Customers don't always know what they want until they see it. So how do retailers get targeted cross- or up-sell offers in front of their audience? By leveraging journey orchestration. Picking up on an online shopper's real-time and historical usage behavior, an effective customer engagement platform quickly determines if that individual is eligible for targeted offers-then follows up in their preferred channel. Before they know it, they'll be buying a Ken doll to go along with that Barbie Dreamhouse they originally wanted.

Day 4: Pick up purchased products

All those online holiday shoppers eventually need to pick up their purchases in the real world. Pre-planning for this journey is key to making it seamless. Customers with successful orders benefit from automatic notifications that their product is available, along with upfront expectations and regular reminders of the pick-up deadline. The buy-online-pick-up-in-store journey is one that is here to stay and therefore must be mastered by traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.

Day 5: Customer feedback survey

Once a customer gift wraps their purchased product and gets back to holiday baking, their experience with your brand is the last thing on their mind. Bring it to the forefront with a timely invitation to complete a customer feedback survey. Not only does this help your organization gather critical insights on the customer experience, it also course-corrects negative brand interactions by initiating a call to the contact center following poor feedback.

Day 6: Report suspicious account activity

Not everyone wishes joy to the world on the 12 days of Christmas. Fraud runs especially rampant during the holiday season, and according to an AARP survey, 82% of U.S. consumers have experienced or were targeted by fraudulent activity in the past year. That means that many consumers will fall victim to fraud-often without even knowing it. Fortunately, an organization with journey orchestration capabilities can protect clients from the worst of the damage. After detecting suspicious behavior, the platform will be triggered to initiate an automated investigation call. The quick response prevents scammers from sneaking off with a head start, and the investigation follow-through alleviates the victim's anxiety.

Day 7: Purchase devices, bundles and offers

What happens when your child's favorite Christmas movie isn't available on your existing network? You search for one that has it! Although many homes are hesitant to add yet another subscription service, holiday hosting can tip the scales. Reluctant customers may be further swayed with the assistance of a telecom company's orchestrated outreach. Once the system detects an abandoned cart, it will decide which channel and content combination is best to nudge the prospect toward completion. Ushering the customer through a bundle purchase is a win-win: you get the sale, and they get the content they want to watch just in time for Christmas.

Day 8: Exceed overdraft limit notification

In the haste to find everyone on their list a Christmas gift, customers may unknowingly spend beyond their means during the holiday season. Worse still are the fees incurred from exceeding overdraft limits. Avoid unhappy customer calls by preemptively warning escalating spenders that they're approaching their maximum allowances. By mapping and orchestrating this journey, financial service providers have a better chance of preventing overdraft incidents for high value customers-keeping them happy and reducing the load on their call centers.

Day 9: Proactive service outage notification

Dreaming of a white Christmas? Winter storms aren't always welcome during the holiday season. Snowfall, heavy rain and high winds can rip down power lines and leave households with unplanned service outages. But service providers with a journey orchestration system reduce customer angst by proactively keeping them updated at every stage of service restoration. They can breathe easy knowing that their provider is aware of the issue and actively working to resolve it before Santa arrives.

Day 10: Schedule and manage appointments

Another Christmas crisis winter weather brings? Cold and flu symptoms. Emergency room visits spike during the holidays. Healthcare providers are stretched thin and would benefit from any extra assistance juggling their jam-packed schedules. Orchestrating patient appointment management relieves a huge burden for medical offices. The capabilities to confirm scheduled appointments or reschedule as needed help ensure the patients who need the most care can be seen, while appointment reminders and delay notifications allow patients to manage their own busy holiday schedules.

Day 11: Replace or return products

Not every gift is a perfect fit. When a customer realizes they grabbed the wrong size or color, their first move will be to initiate a return or exchange. Retailers with a customer engagement system can make the interaction smoother by nudging them through the process. After detecting the customer's intent to return or replace a product, it will prompt the best path forward to right the wrong. Whether the replacement requires a home delivery or in-store pick-up, the swap will be an easy one if orchestrated properly.

Day 12: Ask about bills, services or charges

Hosting the holidays drains your energy-and raises your monthly bills. Constant phone calls, cooking for a crowd and powering Christmas lights all add up. But that won't stop customers from experiencing bill confusion when they see a spike in charges. Instead of fielding frantic calls to the contact center, organizations utilizing journey orchestration can first direct panicked customers to support pages that demystify itemized billing. If they still aren't satisfied, they'll be routed to an agent that can walk them through the unexpected fees. Better yet, customers can skip this step altogether if their statement incorporates a feature like Bill Explainer: a solution that takes a proactive approach to communication surrounding the bill with personalized explanations and thoughtful targeting.

CSG Xponent Orchestrates These 12 Journeys-And Many More

CSG Xponent includes pre-built use cases for four industries: telecommunications, financial services, retail and healthcare. Xponent is a customer experience platform that is flexibly designed as an overlay to your existing systems, acting as the connective tissue that brings your customer data together and orchestrates journeys for ideal outcomes. Xponent delivers the right contextual message, at the right time, in the customer's preferred channel. Best of all? You can compose, personalize, design and send communications for all channels, in one spot.

Want to add CSG Xponent to your company's wish list? 

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