Redesign CX and EX for Zen shopping experiences

The Situation: The pandemic shined a light on customer friction points, leaving enterprises of all shapes and sizes to either flounder with disruption or make bold changes to finally transform and meet changing customer expectations. An online eyewear retailer saw a rise in first-time customers on its site and decided to boldly accelerate its customer service improvement initiatives. Partner Sitel Group® worked with the company on a user-experience-centric approach to make it easier for customers to shop online, factoring in both employee and customer experiences.

With lockdowns halting foot traffic in brick-and-mortar stores, e-commerce sites experienced a deluge of newcomers not familiar with shopping for eyewear online, elevating the importance of the customer experience (CX). This born-online retailer’s goals were to create a seamless shopping experience for customers and ensure its agents were in tune with customers, focusing on connecting with them on a genuine, human level. Before the pandemic, the company’s customer service always prioritized building a connection with customers, but it was even more critical amid the pandemic’s disruption. With so many customers new to the website, agents needed to display patience and product knowledge to ensure customers felt they were in good hands. Even today, in 2022, buying glasses online is new for many people. Providing a “white glove” level of service has become vital to its success as it continues to build confidence and loyalty with new and existing customers.

Focus on human centricity for designing digital experiences

HFS survey data from 2022 in Exhibit 1 shows us that empowering employees and redesigning customer processes are the most important elements of improving customer experiences today. At a recent HFS roundtable, HFS’ enterprise delegates agreed that focusing on the employee experience (EX) was the top element for improving CX, followed by redesigning customer-facing processes.

Exhibit 1: EX tops the list of initiatives to improve CX

Sample: 15 CX DRT Delegates
Source: HFS Research, 2022

The retailer chose to double down on these top two items by engaging in conversations about how to redesign its experiences and processes through the eyes of its customers and employees. It tapped CX services partner Sitel Group to design a strategy to ease the buying process for its customers, who range from ages 18 to 80, and improve the agent experience. The discovery phase of the partnership included an assessment of the company’s business goals and existing processes; they created a roadmap to outline the firm’s goals. The Sitel Group solution included three layers of services featuring robust CX solutions including:

• CX Operations: The solution includes the bread-and-butter multichannel offerings contact center BPOs were built on, but more sophisticated with agent experience and multichannel requirements.
• CX Analytics: The analytics solution includes data-driven insights implemented to better understand the end customer, identify pain points, and foster continuous improvement.
• CX Digital: A cognitive chatbot created by Sitel Group helps reduce customer friction and eliminate low-hanging-fruit interaction volumes.

Two sides of the coin—designing digital customer and employee experiences for improved outcomes

While the first two elements of the solution are important, the digital agent generated the most dramatic changes at the retailer. The firm re-branded the customer-facing digital agent to a fun persona. Beyond wanting to improve experiences, it aimed to use the cognitive chatbot capabilities to alleviate challenges related to contact volume—up to two million contacts each year by phone, chat, and email—and manage fluctuations in demand and seasonal peaks. Starting with low-hanging fruit and use cases that could add more value, the chatbot started handling order status, return requests, and frame selection inquiries. The cognitive chatbot currently achieves an 88% customer satisfaction rating and has improved customer wait times and inquiry resolution. It has also reduced the total cost of customer care via the web by 20%. Escalations to human agents remain below the service level agreement target of 43%, in part by virtue of its natural language understanding (NLU), which the retailer frequently tunes for improvements. It is also worth noting that in an artificial intelligence (AI) world fraught with potential bias issues, the company purposefully decided to make the chatbot  gender-neutral , reflecting its inclusive brand ideals (a solid move, in HFS’ opinion).

This online retailer has also implemented an internal-facing chatbot to assist with onboarding and upskilling, helping agents be knowledgeable, personable, and empowered. Eighty-six percent (86%) of agents report that introducing the digital agent has impacted their day-to-day work positively. It has also increased inquiry resolution to 98.87%, an increase of more than 13%.

Strong change management and project management ensure success

Some lessons learned from the partnership include that change management and project management are the most important elements of success, further driving home the point that solutions must focus on people first rather than process and technology. In fact, at the very beginning, agents saw the chatbot as a bit of a threat; they were afraid it would reduce work volume and job security. Being transparent with employees about company goals with the chatbot helped build trust. Letting employees work with and interact with the tool alleviated their fears; it helped agents handle escalations and equipped them better to do their jobs. On the project management side, pulling in all the necessary stakeholders and getting buy-in on the undertaking was a key factor in the program’s success.

The Bottom Line: Designing for CX and EX with equal importance can have the win-win result of improved experiences, efficiencies and competitive differentiation.

 The eyewear retailer’s core philosophy is centered around high-touch interactions, continuous improvement, and scalability. The company continues to explore ways to leverage technology for empowering customers and affording agents the space to have more meaningful engagements with customers. The next steps include building out its Stylist Program, designed for agents to provide style recommendations to customers based on face shape, fashion taste, and other style considerations. This level of personalization is exactly what many ecommerce shoppers are looking for, perhaps even replicating a high-touch, in-store experience. Keeping a keen eye on creating new experiences and improving current ones in our digital commerce world is foundational to developing brand loyalty, trust and differentiation in the market.